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War Poets of The South
AKD
Confederate Camp-Fire Songs
CoYvvpil^ci, J3\A Ckarles VV»llioiyw Hi->is^A^f,
The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past ;
No war's wild note, no glory's peal,
Shall thrill with fierce dehght, |
Those breasts that nevermore may feel I
The rapture of the fight. * *
Thbodobe O'Hara.
DEDICATION.
To General John B. Gordon— hero, statesman, orator— and all
other surviving veterans of the C. S. A,, this souvenir-
book of war-poems and camp-fire songs
is fraternally dedicated.
>' (
/vA
A^
f1-
We should never forget to teach these songs to
our children. Let them understand, even in song,
our cause. To me the Southern songs of our
great war are the sweetest I ever heard. I learned
to love them when a child, and I will love them
until I die."— Lucy McRae Walton.
CAMP-FIRE SONGS. J
Voice after voice caught up tiie song, ^
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong —
Their battle-eve confession.
The Song op the Camp— Bayard Taylor.
CONTENTS.
George W. Bagby—
The Empty Sleeve 23
James R. Barrick —
Ye Batteries of Beauregard 26
No Land Like Ours 28
Caroline A. Ball—
The Jacket of Gray ,. 30
Mary E. Bryan—
War News on the Border 33
John E. Cooke—
The Band in the Pines 39
The Broken Mug 40
Jane T. Cross—
The Confederacy 47
President Davis 49
Anna P. Dinnies—
Carolina 52
Henry L. Flash—
Zollicoffer 56
Jackson . 57
Polk 58
James B. Hope—
The Oath of Freedom 60
Libera Nos O Dominie ! 62
VI CONTENTS.
Paul H. Hayne—
Charleston 67
Battle of Charleston Harbor 70
Our Martyrs 73
Annie C. Ketchum—
Gathering- Song- 76
Agnes Leonard—
After the Battle 78
Albert Pike—
Dixie 84
Margaret J. Preston—
Hymn to the National Flag 88
Dirge for Ashby 90
Rev. Abram J. Ryan—
The Conquered Banner 93
The Sword of Robert Lee 96
The Southern Soldier Boy 97
James R. Randall—
My Maryland 99
John Pelham ... 103
At Fort Pillow 105
A. J. Requier—
Ashes of Glory . 109
William G. Simms—
Fort Wagner Ill
The Angel of the Church 113
Carrie B. Sinclair—
Georgia, My Georgia 117
The Home-spun Dress 119
CONTENTS. Vll
Frank O. Ticknor—
Little Giffen 122
The Virg-inians of the Valley 124
The Old Rifleman 125
Henry Timrod—
A Cry To Arms 127
Charleston 129
The Unknown Dead 131
John R Thompson—
Ashby 134
The Battle Rainbow 136
The Burial of Latane .... 138
Catherine A. Warfield—
Beaureg-ard 141
Virginia 143
A Pledge to Lee 144
miscellaneous.
Unknown — Charles W. Hubner 148
Dying Words of Stonewall Jackson 149
Dixie Land 150
Happy Land of Canaan 152
Bonnie Blue Flag — Harry McCarthy 153
Few Days 155
Root, Hog, or Die 15*7
When this Cruel War is Over 159
All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night 160
The Southern Soldier Boy ■ 162
Goober Peas , 163
Stonewall Jackson's Way 164
Vlll CONTENTS.
Cheer, Boys, Cheer 166
Here's Your Mule 167
Lorena 168
Paul Vane ♦• 170
The Confederate Note — S. A. Jonas 172
The Rebel's Requiem— M. V. Moore 173
I'm Conscripted, Smith, Conscripted — Albert Roberts. . 175
The Prisoner's Lament — Capt. Clarkson. 177 •
To Go or Not To Go 178
The Southern Marseillaise 179
To A One- Armed Confederate Soldier— H. J. Stockard. . 180
Song- of the Texas Rangers . ^V. .♦ . X ... ^ .5(^. VMJW:*:^^ 181
Somebody's Darling — Marie La Coste 183
Bentonville— T. B. Catherwood 185
HISTORICAL NOTES.
"Dixie," 191
The Confederate Note 193
Maryland, My Maryland 198
Bentonville 203
Bonnie Blue Flag 204
They, in thy cause, O South !
Bore to the cannon's mouth
Thy crimson battle-flag,
And hailed its star-cross waving free,
On many a field of victory.
PREFACE.
T^HE War between the States was prolific in war
poems and songs. North and South, poets and
song-writers vied with each other in invoking the
Muse. The newspapers were the popular mediums
for reaching the hearts of the people, at that period.
Consequently their columns, and frequently also the
more select pages of the literary magazines, were
filled with fiery metrical appeals to patriotism, and
the soldiers in the field were animated with martial
strains ; impassioned lyrics sang the glory of war, and
stately odes declared that honor and eternal happiness
are assured to those who die for their country.
One class of bards dealt with the softer passion
of love, and the sweet sentiments of domestic happi-
ness, or with pleasures of memory, hope, and home.
Others were content with picturing the humorous
side of soldier life, and in broad farce or rough bur-
lesque, occasionally threw a gleam of sunshine over
the cares, hardships and dangers encountered by the
weather-beaten veterans, cheering the wearisome
march, or serving to while away, in reckless mirth,
an hour around the camp-fire.
2
16 PREFACE.
The poets and balladiers of the South were as
busy and as capable as their fellow-craftsmen of the
North in furnishing the tragic, as well as the melo-
dramatic and comic material, which constitutes the
poetical and more popular literature of the war.
The work of Southern writers loses nothing by com-
parison with the work of their competitors in the
North, in point of general merit. Their productions,
as a vital part of the literary history of our stupendous
struggle, deserve equal prominence, and will well
repay the most earnest study. The natural mental,
moral, social and sentimental qualities which differ-
entiate the people of the North and the South —
differences whose origin dates back for centuries,
and which are due to peculiarities of race, education,
and social customs — are clearly displayed in the
poetry produced during the war and which, to the
careful student, furnish data for curious and interest-
ing speculations. The headlong, passionate, declama-
tory, impulsive and often dithyrambic style of the
Southern poems and songs, when contrasted with the
peculiarities of the spirit and style of the effusions of
Northern pens, strikingly illustrates the character-
PREFACE. 19
differences that exist in the people indigenous to the
North and the South — the characteristics of the
Puritan and the Cavalier stocks, whose descendants
confronted each other on the battle-fields of the late
war, and who had determined to leave to a final settle-
ment by the sword the great moral questions and
political issues, which it seemed could not be adjusted
through more peaceful means.
It is impossible to measure fully the influence of
the power of song — of the plaintive ballad, the lofty
and heroic lyric, the rollicking parody, or even the
rude doggerel oamp-fire "catches" — on the progress
and the results of the war. It is certain that the
voices of our poets cheered the desponding, nerved
the brave to dare and do heroic deeds, comforted the
absent, the sick, and the dying. They often filled
the soul with lofty aspirations, soothing and bright-
ening the loneliness and gloom of the prison, kindling
and keeping alive the fires of patriotism, and urging
on to glory or the grave thousands upon thousands of
the best, the bravest, truest and noblest spirits that
ever went forth to battle for their country, and to
defend the cause which they conscientiously believed
20 PREFACE.
to be right, and worthy of the sacrifice of life itself.
Such was the influence and effect of the war-poems
and songs of the South upon our men in the field, and
on the hearts of the Southern people in general.
Some of the poems and lyrics are marked with all
the signs of genuine poetry. They breathe the divine
afflatus, and are worthy of their permanent place in
our literature. Others are the offspring of the moment,
dashed off in the transitory white heat of passion,
serving a passing purpose and worthy of notice only
because they are the expression of a real feeling or
fancy existing at the time. Others, again, are simply
rude, denunciatory or comical rhymes, or even rough
doggerel — the scum and slag of the flaming furnace
of civil war — and preserved only as curios of a
memorable period.
Though the quality of this collection of verse is
naturally exceedingly variable, still it has positive and
permanent value as the poetic expression of the spirit
of a great and valiant people, engaged with heart and
soul in a long and desperate struggle for political
independence, and to which spirit a number of its
poets and song-writers gave vent in strains of fervent
and forceful patriotic inspiration unexcelled, in this
respect, by the war-poetry of any people, ancient or
modern.
Over a score of poets, male and female, have been
drawn upon in this book to furnish more or less
representative poems. A large number of poets and
poems — the latter frequently equal in merit to many
here reproduced — had to be omitted, owing to the
necessary limitations prescribed for this volume. Nor
is it claimed that the poems selected are the best
written by their respective authors. Yet it is hoped
that this book will, in small space, faithfully portray
the spirit and form of the war-poetry of the South.
The brief biographical notice of each author repre-
sented will also, it is thought, be found useful and
interesting.
This little book is especially intended for the
hearts and homes of old Confederate veterans, in
whose breasts its contents will revive tender memories
of camp and field; of the bivouac and the march; of
the gloom and the glory of battle. Thus dreaming
the veterans may hear again the echoes of the martial
music which once thrilled their hearts, and to whose
22 PREFACE.
lively measures they so proudly and joyfully kept
time, in the brave, heroic days of "auld lang syne."
With a tear in the eye, and maybe a strange twitching
in the throat, the old veteran may wish to read one
of these war-poems or camp-fire songs to his children —
his stalwart boys and blooming girls — or even attempt
to sing one of them himself, as he did when he was
"at the front" with Lee, or Jackson, or Gordon, or
Johnston, and when his voice was fresher and clearer
than it is now. His good old wife, as she sits listening,
and dreaming too of those dreadful yet glorious days,
may also find it necessary to wipe her spectacles,
blurred by the moisture of a secret tear. Then the
little book may be tenderly laid away on the table or
shelf, to be taken in hand again some other time.
To these, and to the firesides of the South generally,
this volume is expected to go. To these it appeals
for kindly welcome and generous reception. In this
spirit the compiler hopes that this souvenir of the
war will fulfill its unpretentious mission and find its
appropriate place.
CHARLES W. HUBNER.
Atlanta, Ga.
GEORGE W. BAGBY.
Dr. George W. Bagby was born in Virginia in 1828, and for a
number of years was the editor of the Southern Literary Mes-
senger, published at Richmond, Va. He was a frequent con-
tributor to current literature, and won well deserved literary lau-
rels in humorous writings, over the pen-name of "Mozis
Addums." He also achieved considerable success as a lec-
turer. Some of his lyrics are exquisite. "The Empty Sleeve"
is a gem of this kind, full of homely but genuine pathos.
THE EMPTY SLEEVE.
Tom, old fellow, I grieve to see
That sleeve hanging loose at your side ;
The arm you lost was worth to me
Every Yankee that ever died.
But you don't mind it at all,
You swear you've a beautiful stump,
And laugh at the damnable ball —
Tom, I knew you were always a trump !
A good right arm, a nervy hand,
A wrist as strong as a sapling oak.
Buried deep in the Malvern sand —
To laugh at that is a sorry joke.
Never again your iron grip
Shall I feel in my shrinking palm;
Tom, Tom, I see your trembling lip.
How on earth can I be calm ?
24 THE EMPTY SLEEVE.
Well, the arm is gone, it is true;
But the one that is nearest the heart
Is left — and that's as good as two.
Tom, old fellow, what makes you start ?
Why, man, she thinks that empty sleeve
A badge of honor; so do I,
And all of us — I do believe
The fellow is going to cry !
** She deserves a perfect man," you say;
You, "not worth her in your prime; "
Tom, the arm that has turned to clay,
Your whole body has made sublime;
For you have placed in the Malvern earth
The proof and the pledge of a noble life.
And the rest, henceforward of higher worth,
Will be dearer than all to your wife.
I see the people in the street
Look at your sleeve with kindling eyes;
And know you, Tom, there's naught so sweet
As homage shown in mute surmise ;
Bravely your arm in battle strove.
Freely for freedom's sake you gave it
It has perished, but a nation's love
In proud remembrance will save it.
THE EMPTY SLEEVE. 2$
Go to your sweetheart, then, forthwith —
You're a fool for staying so long ;
Woman's love you will find no myth,
But a truth — living, tender and strong;
And when around her slender belt
Your left arm is clasped in fond embrace.
Your right will thrill, as if it felt
In its grave the usurper's place.
As I look through the coming years,
I see a one-armed married man ;
A little woman, with smiles and tears.
Is helping as hard as she can
To put on his coat, pin his sleeve,
Tie his cravat, and cut his food- —
And I say, as these fancies I weave,
"That is Tom, and the woman he wooed."
The years roll on, and then I see
A wedding picture, bright and fair;
I look closer, and it's plain to me
That is Tom with the silver hair;
He gives away the lovely bride.
And the guests linger, loth to leave
The house of him in whom they pride —
Brave old Tom, with the empty sleeve.
JAMES R. BARRICK.
Born in Barren County, Kentucky, in 1829. He was at one
time a member of the Kentucky Legislature. In 1864 he lived
in Macon, Ga., and in association with Harry Flash edited the
Macon Telegraph. After the close of the war he resided in
Atlanta, engaged in literary work. He was the author of several
stirring war poems. His remains are buried in Oakland Ceme-
ter}^, Atlanta, Georgia.
YE BATTERIES OF BEAUREGARD.
Ye batteries of Beauregard !
Pour hail from Moultrie's wall ;
Bid the shock of your deep thunder
On their fleet in terror fall ;
Rain your storm of leaden fury
On the black invading host —
Teach them that their step shall never
Press on Carolina's coast.
Ye batteries of Beauregard !
Sound the story of our wrong ;
Let your tocsin wake the spirit
Of a people brave and strong ;
The proud names of old remember —
Marion, Sumter, Pinckney, Greene ;
Swell the roll whose deeds of glory.
Side by side with theirs are seen.
YE BATTERIES OF BEAUREGARD. 27
Ye batteries of Beauregard !
From Savannah on them frown ;
By the majesty of Heaven
Strike their grand " Armada " down ;
By the blood of many a freeman,
By each dear-bought battlefield,
By the hopes we fondly cherish.
Never ye the victory yield !
Ye batteries of Beauregard !
All along our Southern coast,
Let, in after-time, your triumphs
Be a nation's pride and boast ;
Send each missile with a greeting
To the vile, ungodly crew ;
Make them feel they ne'er can conquer
People to themselves so true.
Ye batteries of Beauregard !
By the glories of the past,
By the memory of old Sumter,
Whose renown will ever last,
Speed upon their vaunted legions
Volleys thick of shot and shell.
Bid them welcome, in your glory.
To their own appointed hell.
NO LAND LIKE OURS.
Though other lands may boast of skies
Far deeper in their blue,
Where flowers, in Eden's pristine dyes,
Bloom with a richer hue ;
And other nations pride in kings.
And worship lordly powers,
Yet every voice of nature sings,
There is no land like ours !
Though other scenes than such as grace
Our forests, fields and plain.
May lend the earth a sweeter face,
Where peace incessant reigns.
But dearest still to me the land
Where sunshine cheers the hours,
For God hath shown, with His own hand.
There is no land like ours !
Though other streams may softer flow
In vales of classic bloom.
And rivers clear as crystal glow.
That wear no tinge of gloom ;
Though other mountains lofty look,
And grand seem olden towers,
We see, as in an open book,
There is no land like ours !
NO LAND LIKE OURS. 29
Though Other nations boast of deeds
That live in old renown,
And other peoples cling to creeds
That coldly on us frown,
On pure religion, love and law,
Are based our ruling powers —
The world but feels, with wondering awe,
There is no land like ours !
Though other lands may boast their brave.
Whose deeds are writ in fame.
Their heroes ne'er such glory gave
As gilds our country's name ;
Though others rush to daring deeds,
Where the darkening war-cloud lowers,
Here, each alike for freedom bleeds —
There is no land like ours !
Though other lands Napoleon
And Wellington adorn,
America her Washington,
And later heroes born ;
Yet Johnston, Jackson, Price and Lee,
Bragg, Buckner, Morgan, towers.
With Beauregard, and Hood, and Bee-
There is no land like ours !
CAROLINE A. BALL.
Mrs. Ball was born in Charleston, S. C. Her maiden name
was Rutledge. Since the war she has written a number of
excellent stories for Southern journals. A small volume of her
poems entitled "The Jacket of Gray, and Other Fugitive
Poems," was published in 1866, at Charleston.
THE JACKET OF GRAY.
Fold it up carefully, lay it aside ;
Tenderly touch it, look on it with pride ;
For dear must it be to our hearts evermore.
The jacket of gray our loved soldier-boy wore.
Can we ever forget when he joined the brave band,
That rose in defense of our dear Southern land.
And in his bright youth hurried on to the fray,
How proudly he donned it — the jacket of gray ?
His fond mother blessed him, and looked up above,
Commending to Heaven the child of her love;
What anguish was hers mortal tongue cannot say.
When he passed from her sight in the jacket of gray.
THE JACKET OF GRAY. 3 1
But her country had called, and she would not repine,
Though costly the sacrifice placed on its shrine ;
Her heart's dearest hopes on its altar she'd lay,
When she sent out her boy in the jacket of gray.
Months passed, and war's thunder rolled over the land;
Unsheathed was the sword, and lighted the brand ;
We heard in the distance the sounds of the fray,
And prayed for our boy in the jacket of gray.
Ah, vain, all in vain were our prayers and our tears;
The glad shout of victory rang in our ears ;
But our treasured one on the red battle-field lay,
While the life-blood oozed out on the jacket of gray.
His young comrades found him, and tenderly bore
His cold, lifeless form to his home by the shore;
Oh, dark were our hearts on that terrible day.
When we saw our dead boy in the jacket of gray.
Ah ! spotted and tattered, and stained now with gore.
Was the garment which once he so proudly wore ;
We bitterly wept as we took it away,
And replaced with death's white robe the jacket of
gray.
32 THE JACKET OF GRAY.
We laid him to rest in his cold, narrow bed,
And graved on the marble we placed o'er his head.
As the proudest tribute our sad hearts could pay :
" He never disgraced the jacket of gray."
Then fold it up carefully, lay it aside.
Tenderly touch it, look on it with pride ;
For dear must it be to our hearts evermore.
The jacket of gray our loved soldier-boy wore !
MARY E. BRYAN.
Mrs. Bryan is a Floridian by birth, and has devoted her life
and her brilliant natural gifts to literary work of the very high-
est grade. All of her work bears the unmistakable stamp of
genius. For a number of years, as the editor of the Sunny
South, a noted literary journal, Mrs. Bryan did faithful and suc-
cessful work in behalf of Southern literature, and North and
South, as well as in Europe, she is recognized as one of the
most brilliant of our native American writers. As a novelist
and as a poet she has achieved permanent fame. A volume of
her collected poems is now in press and will soon be published.
WAR NEWS ON THE BORDER.
Scene: Tke Texas bank of the Rio Grande; two trav-
elers meeting.
** Hooray ! Well done ! Right glad am I to see you
safely land,
'Tis no child's play for man or horse to swim the Rio
Grande,
My horse is stouter, but I'll try ferry or bridge to
find,
To breast that dark and swirling tide is not much to
my mind;
Take a pull at this flask. Aha ! my talk you under-
stand.
You are no greaser then, although you hail from
33 Mexic land,
3
34 WAR NEWS ON THE BORDER.
You're from the States, I'd swear. The sun gave
you that Spaniard's hue,
For brown is this thick beard of yours, and your keen
eyes are blue ;
They stare at me with such a queer, bewildering sort
of gleam.
Why, man, 3'-ou look as wild as one just wakened
from a dream."
*' And well I may; I have not seen a white face until
now,
Since the muscadines two summers back swung from
this cypress bough;
'Tis twice twelve months and more, since last I heard
my native tongue,
It seems a sweeter music now than Seraph ever sung.
In yonder wild Sierras, I've led a savage life
Of hardship, hunter's lonely joys, perils and deadly
strife ;
I'd sworn never to turn my steps to my own land
again,
But this home-sickness, comrade, 'tis the meanest
kind of pain,
I fought it manfully; but who can overcome the
Fates .?
So here I've crossed the border to the old United
States."
WAR NEWS ON THE BORDER 35
"United States ! Take back the words ! United
States no more,
We blush to think our Southern land so long the title
bore;
A storm whose fierceness shakes the world that for-
mer bond has riven,
And now our Southern banner floats beneath approv-
ing Heaven."
"The Union severed! Gracious Powers! I never
dreamed of this,
Though — like the serpent of the wilds that shrills its
warning hiss
Before it gives the fatal spring, I knew the South
had long
Warned that she would no more endure the North's
tyrannic wrong.
But this ! Who dreamed so bold a deed had been so
quickly done ?
The South a separate power, her flag unfurled
beneath the sun !
Tis like a dream ! And has she strength to stand
free of the yoke ?
Will she not falter and take back the allegiance she
broke?"
36 WAR NEWS ON~THE BORDER.
"Never, until those rooted hills rise and dissolve like
smoke,
Never, till Mississippi's tide shall turn and north-
ward flow,
Never till Alleghany's peaks like yonder pine shall
bow,
I tell you blood flows in the chasm that yawns between
us now.
The Rubicon's already crossed; the battle is begun."
" Where ? " ''In that loveliest spot that smiles beneath
the Southern sun,
The State that holds the honored bones of Southern
Washington."
" But how we are outnumbered, man ! The North
can bring to field
A ten-fold strength in men and arms ; must this not
make us yield t "
" Yield ! yield ! you stand on Texas soil and dare
speak words like these }
Texas finds place for traitors, but upon her hickory
trees,
And you — ah, but I catch your smile, tell me how
do you stand ? "
WAR NEWS ON THE BORDER. 37
''Ready to give my heart's last drop to help my
Southern Land !"
" Hooray ! That's the right ring ; and here, my
brother, is my hand.
We'll meet, I trust, upon the field, if I come back
alive,
I'm on a secret mission sent, I pray to Heaven may
thrive.
To Mexic's capital I go ; if God shall spare my life.
And you go — where — ? " " Right on, right on,
straight for the scene of strife."
"A woman's treachery drove me here^ half maddened
with despair,
Like a wild, wounded beast to make in loneliness my
lair ;
I shunned my kind and sought to find in trackless
solitude.
In savage sport and perils wild, cure for my bitter
mood.
But this is better ; this is rare ! Hail glorious news of
war!
Hail, rattling challenge of the guns ! Sweeter your
music far
Than the betraying song of love. I'll drown in bat-
tle's roar
38 WAR NEWS ON THE BORDER.
All memory of the siren voice that I shall hear no
more.
And life and death are one to me, for not an eye
would weep,
If in my soldier's blanket wrapped, I slept a bloody
sleep.
Welcome the tidings of the war ! My wild blood
bounds apace !
Come, tried and trusty rifle-friend, give us a fore-
most place;
Here's better game for you and me than buffalo or
deer.
We'll laugh at death we've faced before and mock
at coward fear ;
Our land has all at stake ; we'll fight like wounded
bears at bay.
And, by the God above, we'll die before we yield
the day ! "
JOHN ESTEN COOKE.
Born at Winchester, Virginia, in 1830. Was educated at the
University of Virginia. Practiced law. Served as a staff officer
in the Confederate Army. Achieved distinction as a novelist and
historian. "Surry of Eagle's Nest" is the most famous of his
novels. He died in 1886, and is buried near Berryville, Virginia.
His oldest brother, Philip Pendleton Cooke, was the author of
the well known sons:, " Florence Vane."
THE BAND IN THE PINES.
Oh, band in the pine-wood cease !
Cease with your splendid call ;
The living are brave and noble,
But the dead were bravest of all !
They throng to the martial summons,
To the loud triumphant strain ;
And the dear bright eyes of long dead friends
Come to the heart again.
They come with the ringing bugle,
And the deep drum's mellow roar ;
Till the soul is faint with longing
For the hands we clasp no more !
Oh, band in the pine-wood cease !
Or the heart will melt in tears,
For the gallant eyes and the smiling lips,
And the voices of old years !
40 THE BROKEN MUG.
THE BROKEN MUG.
My mug is broken, my heart is sad !
What woes can Fate still hold in store .''
The friend I cherished a thousand days
Is smashed to pieces on the floor !
Is shattered and to Limbo gone,
I'll see my mug no more !
Relic it was of joyous hours.
Whose golden memories still allure —
When coffee made of rye we drank,
And gray was all the dress we wore !
When we were paid some cents a month.
But never asked for more !
In marches long, by day and night.
In raids, hot charges, shocks of war,
Strapped on the saddle at my back.
This faithful comrade still I bore —
This old companion, true and tried,
I'll never carry more !
THE BROKEN MUG. 4I
From the Rapidan to Gettysburg —
** Hard bread" behind, " sour krout " before —
This friend went with the cavalry,
And heard the jarring cannon roar
In front of Cemetery Hill —
Good heavens ! how they did roar !
Then back again, the foe behind,
Back to the " Old Virginia shore" —
Some dead and wounded left — some holes
In flags, the sullen " graybacks " bore ;
This mug had made the great campaign,
And we'd have gone once more !
Alas ! we never went again ;
The red-cross banner, slow but sure,
" Fell back " — we bade to sour krout
(Like the lover of Lenore)
A long, sad, lingering farewell —
To taste its joys no more.
But still we fought, and ate hard bread,
Or starved — good friend, our woes deplore !
And still this faithful friend remained—
42 THE BROKEN MUG.
Riding behind me as before —
The friend on march, in bivouac,
When others were no more.
How oft we drove the horsemen blue
In summer bright or winter frore !
How oft before the Southern charge
Through field and wood the " blue-birds" tore!
I'm "harmonized," but long to hear
The bugles ring once more.
O, yes ! we're all " fraternal " now,
Purged of our sins, we're clean and pure;
Congress will " reconstruct " us soon —
But no gray people on that floor !
I'm harmonized — " so-called " — but long
To see those times once more !
Gay days ! the sun was brighter then.
And we were happy, though so poor !
That past comes back as I behold
My shattered friend upon the floor —
My splintered, useless, ruined mug,
From which I'll drink no more.
THE BROKEN MUG. 43
How many lips I'll love for aye,
While heart and memory endure,
Have touched this broken cup and laughed —
How they did laugh ! — in days of yore !
Those days we'd call " a beauteous dream "
If they had been no more !
Dear comrades, dead this many a day,
I see you weltering in your gore
After those days, amid the pines.
On the Rappahannock shore !
When the joy of life was much to me,
But your warm hearts were more !
Yours was the grand heroic nerve
That laughs amid the storm of war —
Souls that " loved much " your native land,
Who fought and died therefor !
You gave your youth, your brains, your arms.
Your blood — you had no more !
You lived and died true to your flag.
And now your wounds are healed — but sore
Are many hearts that think of you,
44 THE BROKEN MUG.
Where you have " gone before."
Peace, comrade ! God bound up those forms-
They are "whole " forevermore !
Those lips this broken vessel touched,
His, too ! — the man we all adore —
That cavalier of cavaliers,
Whose voice will ring no more —
Whose plume will float amid the storm
Of battle nevermore !
Not on this idle page I write
That name of names, shrined in the core
Of every heart ! peace ! foolish pen,
Hush ! words so cold and poor !
His sword is rust ; the blue eyes dust.
His bugle sounds no more !
Never was cavalier like ours !
Not Rupert in the years before !
And when his stern, hard work was done.
His griefs, joys, battles o'er,
His mighty spirit rode the storm,
And led his men once more !
THE BROKEN MUG. 45
He lies beneath his native sod,
Where violets spring, or frost is hoar ;
He recks not — charging squadrons watch
His raven plume no more !
That smile we'll see, that voice we'll hear.
That hand we'll touch no more !
My foolish mirth is quenched in tears :
Poor fragments strewed upon the floor,
Ye are the types of nobler things
That find their use no more —
Things glorious once, now trodden down —
That makes us smile no more !
Of courage, pride, high hopes, stout hearts —
Hard, stubborn nerve, devotion pure.
Beating his wings against the bars
The prisoned eagle tried to soar !
Outmatched, o'erwhelmed, we struggled still —
Bread failed — we fought no more !
Lies in the dust the shattered staff
That bore aloft on sea and shore.
That blazing flag, amid the storm !
46 THE BROKEN MUG.
And none are now so poor,
So poor to do it reverence,
Now when it flames no more !
But it is glorious in the dust.
Sacred till time shall be no more :
Spare it, fierce editors ! your scorn —
The dread " Rebellion's " o'er !
Furl the great flag — hide cross and star,
Thrust into darkness star and bar,
But look ! across the ages far
It flames forevermore !
JANE T. CROSS.
Born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in 1817. Her first husband
was Hon. Ben Hardin, of Kentucky. Six years after his death
she married Rev. Joseph Cross, D. D., a distinguished minister
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mrs. Cross and her
daughters were imprisoned six months at Camp Chase by the
Federal military authorities on account of their intense sympathy
for and active support of the Confederate cause. Mrs. Cross
was a voluminous contributor to current literature and the
author of several novels and volumes of poetry. She died in 1810.
THE CONFEDERACY.
Born in a day, full grown, our Nation stood.
The pearly light of heaven was in her face ;
Life's early joy was coursing in her blood,
A thing she was of beauty and of.grace.
She stood, a stranger on the great broad earth ;
No voice of sympathy was heard to greet
The glory-beaming morning of her birth.
Or hail the coming of the unsoiled feet.
She stood, derided by her passing foes ;
Her heart beat calmly 'neath their look of scorn;
Their rage in blackening billows round her rose—
Her brow, meanwhile, as radiant as the morn.
48 THE CONFEDERACY.
Their poisonous coils about her limbs are cast ;
She shakes them off in pure and holy ire,
As quietly as Paul, in ages past.
Shook off the serpent in the crackling fire.
She bends not to her foes, nor to the world.
She bears a heart for glory, or for gloom ;
But with her starry cross, her flag unfurled.
She kneels amid her sweet magnolia bloom.
She kneels to thee, O God ! she claims her birth ;
She lifts to Thee her young and trusting eye;
She asks of Thee her place upon the earth —
For it is Thine to give or to deny.
Oh, let Thine eye but recognize her right !
Oh, let Thy voice but justify her claim !
Like grasshoppers are nations in Thy sight.
And all their power is but an empty name.
Then listen. Father, listen to her prayer !
Her robes are dripping with her children's blood;
Her foes around " like bulls of Bashan stare,"
They fain would sweep her off, "as with a flood."
THE CONFEDERACY. 49
The anguish wraps her close around, like death;
Her children lie in heaps about her slain ;
Before the world she bravely holds her breath,
Nor gives one utterance to a note of pain.
But 'tis not like Thee to forget the oppressed.
Thou feel'st within her heart the stifled moan —
Thou Christ ! thou Lamb of God ! oh, give her rest !
For Thou hast called her ! — is she not Thine own ?
PRESIDENT DAVIS.
The cell is lonely, and the night
Has filled it with a darker gloom ;
The little rays of friendly light,
Which through each crack and chink found room
To press in with their noiseless feet.
All merciful and fleet.
And bring, like Noah's trembling dove,
God's silent messages of love —
These, too, are gone,
Shut out, and gone,
And that great heart is left alone.
50 PRESIDENT DAVIS.
Alone, with darkness and with wo,
Around him Freedom's temple lies,
Its arches crushed, its columns low.
The night-wind through its ruins sighs ;
Rash, cruel hands that temple razed.
Then stood the world amazed ;
And now those hands — ah, ruthless deeds !
Their captive pierce — his brave heart bleeds.
And yet no groan
Is heard — no groan !
He suffers silently, alone.
For all his bright and happy home,
He has that cell, so drear and dark;
The narrow walls, for heaven's blue dome,
The clank of chains, for song of lark ;
And for the grateful voice of friends —
That voice which ever lends
Its charm where human hearts are found —
He hears the key's dull, grating sound ;
No heart is near.
No kind heart near.
No sigh of sympathy, no tear !
PRESIDENT DAVIS. 5 1
Oh, dream not thus, thou true and good !
Unnumbered hearts on thee await,
By thee invisibly have stood.
Have crowded through thy prison-gate ;
Nor dungeon bolts, nor dungeon bars.
Nor floating " stripes and stars,"
Nor glittering gun or bayonet,
Can ever cause us to forget
Our faith to thee.
Our love to thee.
Thou glorious soul ! thou strong ! thou free !
ANNIE P. DINNIES.
Born in Georgetown, South Carolina. Her father was Judge
Shackleford, who, soon after her birth, moved to Charleston,
where she was educated. In 1830 Miss Shackleford married John
C. Dinnies, of St. Louis. A few years previous to the war she
moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. Her first volume of poems
was published in 1847. She was a frequent contributor, in prose
and verse, to the literary journals and magazines.
CAROLINA.
In the hour of thy glory,
When thy name was far renowned ;
When Sumter's glowing story
Thy bright escutcheon crowned ;
Oh, noble Carolina ! how proud a claim was mine,
That through homage and through duty, and
birthright, I was thine.
Exulting as I heard thee,
Of every lip the theme.
Prophetic visions stirred me
In a hope-illumined dream —
A dream of dauntless valor, of battles fought and won.
When each field was but a triumph — a hero every son .
CAROLINA. 53
And now, when clouds arise,
And shadows 'round thee fall,
I lift to heaven my eyes
Those visions to recall;
For I cannot dream that darkness will rest upon thee
long,
Oh, lordly Carolina ! with thine arms and hearts so
strong.
Thy serried ranks of pine.
Thy live-oaks spreading wide.
Beneath the sunbeams shine
In fadeless robes of pride ;
Thus marshalled on their native soil their gallant sons
stand forth,
As changeless as thy forests green, defiant of the
North.
The deeds of other days
Enacted by their sires.
Themes long of love and praise,
Have wakened high desires
In every heart that beats within thy proud domain.
To cherish their remembrance, and live those scenes
again.
54 CAROLINA.
Each heart the home of daring,
Each hand the foe of wrong,
They'll meet with haughty bearing.
The war-ships' thunder-song ;
And though the base invader pollute thy sacred shore,
They'll greet him in their prowess as their fathers
did of yore.
His feet may press their soil,
Or his numbers bear them down.
In his vandal raid for spoil
His sordid soul to crown ;
But his triumph will be fleeting, for the hour is
drawing near.
When the war-cry of thy cavaliers shall strike his
startled ear.
A fearful time shall come
When the gathering bands unite.
And the larum-sounding drum
Calls to struggle for the Right ;
Pro arts et pro focis, from rank to rank shall fly.
As they meet the cruel f oeman, to conquer or to die.
CAROLINA. 55
Oh, then a tale of glory-
Shall yet again be thine,
And the record of thy story
The laurel shall entwine;
Oh, noble Carolina ! Oh, proud and lordly State !
Heroic deeds shall crown thee, and the Nation own
thee great !
HENRY L. FLASH.
Was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1835. Educated at the
Western Military Institute, in Kentucky, and subsequently
settled in Mobile, Ala. Served in the Confederate Army, and
during the closing year of the war became editor of the Macon,
Ga., Daily Confederacy. After the war he resided in New
Orleans and in Galveston, and is now living in Los Angeles, Cal.
A volume of his miscellaneous poems was published in 1860.
ZOLLICOFFER.
First in the fight, and first in the arms
Of the white-winged angels of glory,
With the heart of the South at the feet of God,
And his wounds to tell the story.
And the blood that flowed from his hero-heart
On the spot where he nobly perished.
Was drunk by the earth as a sacrament
In the holy cause he cherished.
In Heaven a home with the brave and blessed,
And, for his soul's sustaining,
The apocalyptic eyes of Christ —
And nothing on earth remaining.
JACKSON. 57
But a handful of dust in the land of his choice,
A name in song and story,
And Fame to shout with her brazen voice :
'* Died on the field of glory ! "
JACKSON.
Not 'midst the lightnings of the stormy fight.
Nor in a rush upon the vandal foe.
Did kingly death, with his resistless might.
Lay the great leader low.
His warrior soul its earthly shackles broke.
In the full sunshine of a peaceful town ;
When all the storm was hushed, the trusty oak
That propped our cause went down.
Though his alone the blood that flecks the ground,
RecalHng all his grand heroic deeds,
Freedom herself is writhing with the wound,
And all the country bleeds.
58 POLK.
He entered not the nation's promised land,
At the red belching of the cannon's mouth,
But broke the house of bondage with his hand —
The Moses of the South !
O gracious God ! not gainless in the loss,
A glorious sunbeam gilds the sternest frown;
And while his country staggers with the cross,
He rises with the crown !
POLK.
A flash^from the edge of a hostile trench,
A puff of smoke, a roar.
Whose echo shall roar from Kennesav.?- hills,
To the farthermost Christian shore,
Proclaim to the world that the warrior-priest
Will battle for right no more ;
And that for a cause which is sanctified
By the blood of martyrs unknown —
A cause for which they gave their lives,
POLK. 59
And for which he gave his own —
He kneels, a weak ambassador,
At the foot of the Father's throne ;
And up to the courts of another world,
That angels alone have trod,
He lives away from the din and strife
Of this blood-besprinkled sod —
Crowned with the amarinthine wreath
That is worn by the blest of God.
JAMES B. HOPE.
Was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1827. Practiced law, entered
the Confederate Army in 1861, serving as captain and quarter-
master to the close of the war. A volume of his poems was
published in 1857. After the war he was superintendent of the
public schools of Norfolk, and editor of the Daily Landmark.
He died in 1887. He is the author of numerous excellent poems,
lyric and dramatic. A few years ago a beautiful monument,
erected in his honor by the citizens of Norfolk, was placed upon
his grave, with impressive ceremonies.
THE OATH OF FREEDOM.
" Liberty is always won where there exists the unconquerable
will to be free."
Born free, thus we resolve to live,
By Heaven we will be free !
By all the stars which burn on high-
By the green earth, the mighty sea,
By God's unshaken majesty,
We will be free or die !
Then let the drums all roll,
Let all the trumpets blow !
Mind, heart and soul,
We spurn control
Attempted by a foe !
THE OATH OF FREEDOM. 6 1
Born free, thus we resolve to live,
By Heaven we will be free !
And vainly now the Northmen try
To beat us down — in arms we stand
To strike for this our native land !
We will be free or die !
Then let the drums all roll, etc.
Born free, we thus resolve to live.
By Heaven we will be free !
Our wives and children look on high.
Pray God to smile upon the right,
And bid us in the deadly fight
As freemen live or die !
Then let the drums all roll, etc.
Born free, thus we resolve to live,
By Heaven we will be free !
And ere we cease this battle-cry.
Be all our blood, our kindred's spilt,
On bayonet or sabre-hilt,
We will be free or die !
Then let the drums all roll, etc.
62 "LIBERA NOS O DOMINE."
Born free, thus we resolve to live,
By Heaven we will be free !
Defiant let the banners fly.
Shake out their glories to the air,
And, kneeling, brothers, let us swear
We will be free or die !
Then let the drums all roll, etc.
Born free, thus we resolve to live.
By Heaven we will be free !
And to this oath the dead reply —
Our valiant fathers' sacred ghosts —
These with us, and the God of hosts.
We will be free or die !
Then let the drums all roll, etc.
" LIBERA NOS O DOMINE."
What ! ye hold yourselves as freemen ?
Tyrants love just such as ye !
Go ! abate your lofty manner !
Write upon the State's old banner:
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domi*ne !"
LIBERA NOS O DOMINE." 63
Sink before the Federal altar,
Each one low, on bended knee,
Pray, with lips that sob and falter.
This prayer from the coward's psalter
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
But ye hold that quick repentance
In the Northern mind will be ;
This repentance comes no sooner
Than the robber's did, at Luna !
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
He repented him : — the Bishop
Gave him absolution free ;
Poured upon him sacred chrysm.
In the pomp of his baptism ;
'' A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
He repented — then he sickened !
Was he pining for the sea ?
In extremis was he shriven,
The viaticum was given,
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, 0 Domine ! "
64 " LIBERA NOS O DOMINE.'
Then the old cathedral's choir
Took the plaintive minor key ;
With the Host upraised before him,
Down the marble aisles they bore him ;
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! ''
While the Bishop and the Abbot —
All the monks of high degree —
Chanting praise to the Madonna,
Came to do him Christian honor !
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
Now the miserere s cadence
Takes the voices of the sea.
As the music-billows quiver,
See the dead freebooter shiver !
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
Is it that these intonations
Thrill him thus from head to knee ?
Lo, his cerements burst asunder,
'Tis a sight of fear and wonder !
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
LIBERA NOS O DOMINE." 6$
Fierce he stands before the Bishop,
Dark as shape of Destiny ;
Hark ! a shriek ascends, appalling —
Down the prelate goes — dead — falling !
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
Hastings lives ! He was but feigning !
What ! Repentant ? Never he !
Down he smites the priests and friars,
And the city lights with fires !
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
Ah ! the children and the maidens,
'Tis in vain they strive to flee !
Where the white-haired priests lie bleeding
Is no place for woman's pleading.
'' A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
Louder swells the frightful tumult —
Pallid Death holds revelry !
Dies the organ's mighty clamor
By the Norseman's iron hammer !
"A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
5
66 *' LIBERA NOS O DOMINE."
So they thought that he'd repented !
Had they nailed him to the tree,
He had not deserved their pity,
And they had not — lost their city.
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine ! "
For the moral in this story,
Which is plain as truth can be :
If we trust the North's relenting,
We shall shriek — too late repenting.
" A furore Normanorum,
Libera nos, O Domine !"
PAUL H. HAYNE.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, January 1, 1830. Several
volumes of his miscellaneous poems were published before the
war. His complete poetical works were issued in a large and
splendidly illustrated volume, by Lothrop & Co., Boston, in 1884.
After the war, in which he lost nearly all of his property, he
lived in retirement in an hum.ble cottage, at Copse Hill, near
Grovetown, Ga., where he died, August 6, 1886. He is buried
in the old cemetery in Augusta.
CHARLESTON.
What ! still does the Mother of Treason uprear
Her crest 'gainst the Furies that darken her sea ?
Un quelled by mistrust and unblanched by a fear;
Unbowed her proud head and unbending her knee,
Calm, steadfast, and free ?
Aye ! launch your red lightnings, blaspheme in your
wrath,
Shock earth, wave, and heaven with the blasts of
your ire ; —
But she seizes your death-bolts, yet hot from their
path.
And hurls back your lightnings, and mocks at the
fire
6, Of vour fruitless desire.
68 CHARLESTON.
Ringed round by her brave, a fierce circlet of flame
Flashes up from the sword-points that cover her
breast;
She is guarded by Love, and enhaloed by Fame,
And never, we swear, shsllj/ozir footsteps be pressed
Where her dead heroes rest !
Her voice shook the Tyrant! — sublime from her tongue
Fell the accents of warning — a Prophetess grand —
On her soil the first life-notes of Liberty rung.
And the first stalwart blow ofj her gauntleted hand
Broke the sleep of her land !
What more ! she hath grasped with her iron-bound
will
The Fate that would trample her honor to earth —
The light in those deep eyes is luminous still
With the warmth of her valor, the glow of her
worth.
Which illumine the Earth !
And beside her a Knight the great Bayard had loved,
"Without fear or reproach," lifts her banner on
high;
CHARLESTON. 69
He stands in the vanguard, majestic, unmoved,
And a thousand firm souls, when that Chieftain is
nigh.
Vow: " 'Tis easy to die ! "
Their swords have gone forth on the fetterless air !
The world's breath is hushed at the conflict — before
Gleams the bright form of Freedom with wreaths in
her hair;
And what though the chaplet be crimsoned with
gore ?
We shall prize her the more !
And while Freedom lures on with her passionate eyes
To the height of her promise, the voices of yore
From the storied profound of past ages arise,
And the pomps of their magical music outpour
O'er the war-beaten shore.
Then gird your brave Empress, O heroes! with flame,
Flashed up from the sword-points that cover her
breast;
She is guarded by Love, and enhaloed by Fame,
And never, base Foe! shall your footsteps be pressed
Where her dear Martyrs rest !
THE BATTLE OF CHARLESTON HARBOR.
Two hours or more, beyond the prime of a blithe
April day,
The Northman's mailed " Invincibles " steamed up
fair Charleston bay;
They came in sullen file, and slow, low-breasted on
the wave.
Black as a midnight front of storm, and silent as the
grave.
A thousand warrior hearts beat high as those dread
monsters drew
More closely to the game of death across the breeze-
less blue.
And twice ten thousand hearts of those who watched
the scene afar.
Thrill in the awful hush that bides the battle's broad-
ening star !
Each gunner, moveless by his gun, with rigid aspect
stands.
The ready linstocks firmly grasped in bold, untrem-
bling hands,
So moveless in their marbled calm, their stern heroic
guise.
They looked like forms of statued stone with burning
70 human eyes !
THE BATTLE OF CHARLESTON HARBOR. 7 1
Our banners on the outmost walls, with stately rust-
ling fold,
Flash back from arch and parapet the sunlight's
ruddy gold —
They mount to the deep roll of drums and widely
echoing cheers,
And then — once more, dark, breathless, hushed, wait
the grim cannoneers.
Onward, in sullen file, and slow, low glooming on the
wave,
Near, nearer still, the haughty fleet glides silent as
the grave,
When sudden, shivering up the calm, o'er startled
flood and shore.
Bursts from the sacred Island Fort the thunder-
wrath of yore !
Ha ! brutal Corsairs, tho' ye come thrice-cased in iron
mail,
Beware the storm that's opening now, God's ven-
geance guides the hail !
Ye strive the ruffian types of Might 'gainst law and
truth and Right,
Now quail beneath a sturdier Power, and own a
mightier Might !
72 THE BATTLE OF CHARLESTON HARBOR.
No empty boast ! for while we speak, more furious,
wilder, higher.
Dart from the circling batteries a hundred tongues of
fire.
The waves gleam red, the lurid vault of heaven seems
rent above —
Fight on ! O knightly gentlemen ! for faith and home
and love !
There's not in all that line of flame, one soul that
would not rise
To seize the Victor's wreath of blood, tho' death must
give the prize —
There's not in all this anxious crowd that throngs the
ancient town,
A maid who does not yearn for power to strike one
despot down.
The strife grows fiercer ! Ship by ship the proud
Armada sweeps,
Where hot from Sumter's raging breast the volleyed
lightning leaps.
And ship by ship, raked, overborne, ere burned the
sunset bloom.
Crawls seaward, like a hangman's hearse bound to
his felon tomb !
OUR MARTYRS. 73
Oh, glorious Empress of the Main ! from out thy
storied spires,
Thou well may'st peal thy bells of joy, and light thy
festal fires —
Since Heaven this day hath striven for thee, hath
nerved thy dauntless sons,
And thou, in clear-eyed faith hast seen God's angels
near the guns !
OUR MARTYRS.
I am sitting lone and weary.
On the hearth of my darkened room.
And the low wind's fniserere
Makes sadder the midnight gloom ;
There's a terror that's nameless nigh me —
There's a phantom-spell in the air.
And methinks that the dead glide by me,
And the breath of the grave's in my hair !
'Tis a vision of ghastly faces,
All pallid, and worn with pain.
Where the splendor of manhood's graces
Gives place to a gory stain;
74 OUR MARTYRS.
In a wild and weird procession
They sweep by my startled eyes,
And stern with their fate's fruition,
Seem melting in blood-red skies.
Have they come from the shores supernal,
Have they passed from the spirits' goal,
'Neath the veil of the life eternal
To dawn on my shrinking soul .''
Have they turned from the choiring angels,
Aghast at the wo and dearth
That war, with his dark evangels.
Have wrought in the loved of earth ?
Vain dream ! 'mid the far-off mountains
They lie, where the dew-mists weep,
And the murmur of mournful fountains
Breaks over their painless sleep ;
On the breast of the lonely meadows,
Safe, safe from the despot's will.
They rest in the star-lit shadows,
And their brows are white and still !
Alas ! for the martyred heroes.
Cut down at their golden prime,
In a strife with the brutal Neroes,
Who blacken the path of time;
OUR MARTYRS. 75
For them is the voice of wailing,
And the sweet blush-rose departs
From the cheeks of the maidens, paling
O'er the wreck of their broken hearts !
And alas ! for the vanished glory
Of a thousand household spells !
And alas ! for the tearful story
Of the spirit's fond farewells!
By the flood, on the field, in the forest.
Our bravest have yielded breath,
But the shafts that have smitten sorest
Were launched by a viewless death !
Oh, Thou, that hast charms of healing,
Descend on a widowed land,
And bind o'er the wounds of feeling
The balms of Thy mystic hand ;
Till the hearts that lament and languish,
Renewed by the touch divine,
From the depths of a mortal anguish
May rise to the calm of thine !
ANNIE C. KETCHUM.
Mrs. Ketchum was born in Kentucky in 1824. She was for
some time the editor of a literary journal at Memphis, Tennessee.
Her husband was killed in battle during the first year of the
war. She published in 1856 " Nelly Brachen," a novel. She
is also the author of a volume of poems entitled "Lotus Flowers."
GATHERING SONG.
Come, brothers ! rally for the right !
The bravest of the brave
Sends forth her ringing battle-cry,
Beside the Atlantic wave ;
She leads the way, in honor's path.
Come, brothers ! near and far.
Come, rally round the Bonnie Blue Flag,
That bears a single star.
We've born the Yankee trickery,
The Yankee gibe and sneer,
Till Yankee insolence and pride
Know neither shame nor fear ;
But ready now with shot and steel
Their brazen front to mar.
We hoist aloft the Bonnie Blue Flag,
That bears a single star !
GATHERING SONG. TJ
Now Georgia marches to the front,
And close beside her come
Her sisters by the Mexique Sea,
With peahng trump and drum !
Till, answering back from hill and glen
The rallying cry afar,
A Nation hoists the Bonnie Blue Flag,
That bears a single star !
By every stone in Charleston Bay,
By each beleagured town.
We swear to rest not, night or day,
But hunt the tyrants down !
Till, bathed in valor's holy blood.
The gazing world afar.
Shall greet with shouts the Bonnie Blue Flag,
That bears the cross and star.
AGNES LEONARD.
Was born in Kentucky in 1842. She is the author of several
novels, one of which, called "Vanquished," was published by
Carleton & Co., New York. She is also the author of a number
of very meritorious poems.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
All day long the sun had wandered
Through the slowly creeping hours,
And at last the stars were shining,
Like some golden-petalled flowers,
Scattered o'er the azure bosom
Of the glory-haunted night,
Flooding all the sky with grandeur.
Filling all the earth with light ;
And the fair moon, with the sweet stars.
Gleamed amid the radiant spheres
Like "a. pearl of great price," shining
Just as it had shone for years.
On the young land that had risen,
In her beauty and her might.
Like some gorgeous superstructure,
Woven in the dreams of night ;
AFTER THE BATTLE. 79
With her "cities hung like jewels"
On her green and peaceful breast,
With her harvest fields of plenty,
And her quiet homes of rest ;
But a change had fallen sadly
O'er the young and beauteous land,
Brothers on the field fought madly.
That once wandered hand in hand ;
And "the hearts of distant mountains
Shuddered," with a fearful wonder,
As the echoes burst upon them
Of the cannons' awful thunder.
Through the long hours waged the battle.
Till the setting of the sun
Dropped a seal upon the record.
That the day's mad work was done.
Thickly on the trampled grasses
Lay the battle's awful traces,
'Mid the blood-stained clover blossoms
Lay the stark and ghastly faces.
With no mourners bending downward
O'er a costly funeral pall ;
And the dying daylight softly
With the starlight watched o'er all.
80 AFTER THE BATTLE.
And where eager, joyous footsteps
Once, perchance, were wont to pass,
Ran a little streamlet making
One "blue fold in the dark grass ; "
And where, from its hidden fountain,
Clear and bright the brooklet burst,
Two had crawled, and each was bending
O'er to slake his burning thirst.
Then beneath the solemn starlight
Of the radiant jewelled skies,
Both had turned, and were intently
Gazing in each other's eyes ;
Both were solemnly forgiving.
Hushed the pulse of passion's breath-
Calmed the maddening thirst for battle.
By the chilling hand of death.
Then spake one, in bitter anguish:
"God have pity on my wife.
And my children, in New Hampshire,
Orphans by this cruel strife" ;
And the other leaning closer.
Underneath the solemn sky.
Bowed his head to hide the moisture
Gathering in his downcast eye :
AFTER THE BATTLE. 8l
" I've a wife and little daughter,
'Mid the fragrant Georgia bloom" —
Then his cry rang sharper, wilder:
''Oh, God ! pity all their gloom ; "
And the wounded, in their death-hour.
Talking of their loved ones' woes,
Nearer drew unto each other,
Till they were no longer foes ;
And the Georgian listened sadly,
As the other tried to speak,
While the tears were dropping softly
O'er the pallor on his cheek :
"How she used to stand and listen,
Looking o'er the fields for me.
Waiting 'till she saw me coming,
'Neath the shadowy old plum-tree ;
Nevermore I'll hear her laughter,
As she sees me at the gate,
And beneath the plum-tree's shadows,
All in vain for me she'll wait."
Then the Georgian, speaking softly,
Said : "A brown-eyed little one
Used to wait among the roses
For'^me, when the day was done ;
6
82 AFTER THE BATTLE.
And amid the early fragrance
Of those blossoms, fresh and sweet,
Up and down the old verandah,
I would chase my darling's feet ;
"But on earth no more the beauty
Of her face my eyes shall greet,
Never more I'll hear the music
Of those merry pattering feet —
Ah, the solemn starlight falling
On the far-off Georgia bloom.
Tells no tale unto my darlmg
Of her absent father's doom."
Through the tears that rose between them
Both were trying grief to smother,
As they clasped each other's fingers,
Whispering : "Let's forgive each other."
When the morning sun was walking
"Up the gray stairs of the dawn,"
And the crimson east was flushing
All the forehead of the morn.
Pitying skies were looking sadly
On the "once proud, happy land,"
AFTER THE BATTLE. 83
On the Southron and the Northman,
Holding fast each other's hand.
Fatherless the golden tresses,
Watching 'neath the old plum-tree ;
Fatherless the little Georgian,
Sporting in unconscious glee.
ALBERT PIKE.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809. He was a resident of
the South for many years, and the editor of newspapers in Little
Rock, Arkansas, and in Memphis, Tennessee. He entered the
Corxfederate Army and rose to the rank of General. Several
volumes of his miscellaneous poems were published before the
war. He died in Washington, D. C, in 1891.
DIXIE.
Southrons ! hear your country call you,
Up ! lest worse than death befall you !
To arms ! to arms ! to arms in Dixie !
Lo ! all the beacon-fires are lighted,
Let all hearts be now united.
To arms ! to arms ! to arms in Dixie !
Advance the flag of Dixie !
Hurrah ! Hurrah !
For Dixie's land we'll take our stand,
To live or die for Dixie !
To arms ! to arms !
And conquer peace for Dixie !
To arms ! to arms !
84 And conquer peace for Dixie !
DIXIE. 85
Hear the Northern thunders mutter !
Northern flags in South winds flutter !
To arms ! etc.
Send them back your fierce defiance !
Stamp upon the cursed alliance !
To arms ! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc.
Fear no danger ! shun no labor !
Lift up rifle, pike and sabre !
To arms ! etc.
Shoulder pressing close to shoulder,
Let the odds make each heart bolder !
To arms ! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc.
How the South's great heart rejoices,
At your cannons' ringing voices;
To arms ! etc.
For faith betrayed and pledges broken,
Wrongs inflicted, insults spoken,
To arms ! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie !
86 DIXIE.
Strong as lions, swift as eagles !
Back to their kennels hunt the beagles !
To arms ! etc.
Cut the unequal bonds asunder !
Let them hence each other plunder !
To arms ! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc.
Swear upon your country's altar,
Never to submit or falter !
To arms ! etc.
Till the spoilers are defeated,
Till the Lord's work is completed !
To arms ! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc.
Halt not till our Federation
Takes among earth's powers its station !
To arms ! etc.
Then at peace and crowned with glory,
Hear your children tell the story !
To arms ! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc.
DIXIE. S;;^
If the loved ones weep in sadness,
Victory soon shall bring them gladness,
To arms ! etc.
Exultant pride shall banish sorrow,
Smiles chase tears away tomorrow —
To arms ! etc.
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc.
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
Was born in Philadelphia, Pa., and is now residing in Lex-
ington, Virginia. She is the daughter of Rev. Dr. Junkin, at
one time President of Washington College, Lexington, Va. In
1857 she married Col. L T. L. Preston, professor in the Virginia
Military Institute. Mrs. Preston stands at the head of the
female poets of the South. Her " Beechenbrook," a volume of
sixty-five pages, written in one week, is the best narrative poem
of the war. A number of volumes of her poems and sonnets
have been published since the war. Her poetry is remarkable
for artistic finish, grace and tenderness.
HYMN TO THE NATIONAL FLAG.
Float aloft, thou stainless banner !
Azure cross and field of light ;
Be thy brilliant stars the symbol
Of the pure and true and right.
Shelter freedom's holy cause —
Liberty and sacred laws,
Guard the youngest of the nations —
Keep her virgin honor bright.
From Virginia's storied border,
Down to Tampa's farthest shore —
From the blue Atlantic's clashings
To the Rio Grande's roar —
Over many a crimson plain,
Where our martyred ones lie slain —
Fling abroad thy blessed shelter,
88 Stream, and mount, and valley o'er.
HYMN TO THE NATIONAL FLAG. 89
In thy cross of heavenly azure,
Has our faith its emblem high ;
In thy field of white, the hallowed
Truth for which we'll dare and die ;
In thy red, the patriot blood —
Ah ! the consecrated flood ;
Lift thyself, resistless banner !
Ever fill our Southern sky !
Flash with living lightning motion,
In the sight of all the brave !
Tell the price at which we purchased
Room and right for thee to wave
Freely in our God's free air,
Pure and proud and stainless fair,
Banner of the youngest nation —
Banner we would die to save !
Strike Thou for us, King of armies !
Grant us room in Thy broad world !
Loosen all the despot's fetters.
Back be all his legions hurled !
Give us peace and liberty.
Let the land we love be free —
Then, oh ! bright and stainless banner !
Never shall thy folds be furled !
DIRGE FOR ASHBY.
Heard ye that thrilling word —
Accent of dread —
Fall, like a thunder-bolt,
Bowing each head ?
Over the battle dun,
Over each booming gun —
Ashby, our bravest one,!
Ashby is dead !
Saw ye the veterans —
Hearts that had known
Never a quail of fear,
Never a groan —
Sob, though the fight they win,
Tears their stern eyes within —
Ashby, our Paladin,
Ashby is dead !
Dash, dash the tear away —
Crush down the pain !
Dulce et dectcs be
Fittest refrain !
Why should the dreary pall
'Round him be flung at all ?
Did not our hero fall,
Gallantly slain ?
DIRGE FOR ASHBY. QI
Catch the last words of cheer
Dropt from his tongue ;
Over the battle's din
Let them be rung i
" Follow me ! follow me ! "
Soldier, oh ! could there be
Paean or dirge for thee,
Loftier sung ?
Bold as the lion's heart —
Dauntlessly brave —
Knightly as knightliest
Bayard might crave ;
Sweet with all Sydney's grace,
Tender as Hampden's face,
Who now shall fill the space,
Void by his grave ?
'Tis not one broken heart,
Wild with dismay —
Crazed in her agony.
Weeps o'er his clay !
Ah ! from a thousand eyes
Flow the pure tears that rise —
Widowed Virginia lies
Stricken to-day !
92 DIRGE FOR ASHBY.
Yet, charge as gallantly,
Ye, whom he led !
Jackson, the victor, still
Leads at your head !
Heroes ! be battle done
Bravelier, every one
Nerved by the thought alone-
Ashby is dead !
ABRAM J. RYAN.
Rev. Abram J. R5^an, or "Father Ryan, the poet-priest of the
South," as he is familiarly called, was born in Norfolk, Virginia,
in 1834. His parents came from Limerick, Ireland. He was
educated in St. Louis, and in the Ecclesiastical Seminary, at
Niagara, N. Y., and ordained to the Roman Catholic priest-
hood. He served during the war in the Confederate Army as a
chaplain. After the war he was in charge of various churches,
and for thirteen years lived in Mobile, Ala, He died in the
Francescan Monastery, at Louisville, Ky., April 23, 1886. His
complete poetical works have been published in a large and
elegant volume. His genius and patriotism are dear to the
people of the South.
THE CONQUERED BANNER.
Furl that banner ! for 'tis weary,
'Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary;
Furl it, fold it ; it is best ;
For there's not a man to wave it.
And there's not a sword to save it !
And there's not one left to lave it
In the blood which heroes gave it;
And its foes now scorn and brave it-
Furl it, hide it; let it rest !
94 THE CONQUERED BANNER.
Take that banner down ! 'Tis tattered !
Broken is its staff and shattered;
And the valiant hosts are scattered,
O'er whom it floated high;
Oh, 'tis hard for us to fold it —
Hard to think there's none to hold it !
Hard that those who once unrolled it.
Now must furl it with a sigh !
Furl that banner ! furl it sadly !
Once six millions hailed it gladly,
And ten thousands wildly, madly,
Swore it should forever wave !
Swore that foeman's sword should never
Hearts entwined like theirs dissever;
And upheld by brave endeavor,
That dear flag should float forever
O'er their freedom or their grave.
Furl it ! for the hands that grasped it.
And the hearts that fondly clasped it,
Cold and dead are lying low;
And that banner prone is trailing,
While around it sounds are wailing
Of its people in their wo !
THE CONQUERED BANNER 95
For, though conquered, they adore it,
Love the cold, dead hands that bore it.
Weep for those that fell before it —
Pardon those who trailed and tore it;
And, oh, wildly they deplore it,
Now to furl and fold it so !
Furl that banner ! True, 'tis gory,
But 'tis wreathed around with glory.
And 'twill live in song and story,
Though its folds are in the dust !
For its fame on brightest pages.
Penned by poets and by sages,
Shall go sounding down the ages,
Furl its folds though now we must.
Furl that banner ! sadly, slowly !
Treat it gently — it is holy,
For it waves above the dead;
Touch it not — unfold it never !
Let it lie there, furled forever.
For its people's hopes are dead !
THE SWORD OF ROBERT LEE.
Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright,
Flashed the sword of Lee !
Far in the front of the deadly fight,
High o'er the brave in the cause of right,
Its stainless sheen, like a beacon-light.
Led us to victory.
Out of its scabbard where, full long.
It slumbered peacefully.
Roused from its rest by the battle's song.
Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong.
Guarding the right, avenging the wrong,
Gleamed the sword of Lee.
Forth from its scabbard, high in air.
Beneath Virginia's sky —
And they who saw it gleaming there,
And knew who bore it, knelt to swear
That where that sword led they would dare
To follow and to die.
Out of the scabbard ! Never hand
Waved sword from stain so free,
Nor purer sword led braver band,
Nor braver bled for a brighter land,
Nor brighter land had a cause so grand,
Nor cause a chief like Lee !
THE SOUTHERN SOLDIER BOY. Q/
Forth from its scabbard ! How we prayed
That sword might victor be;
And when our triumph was delayed,
And many a heart grew sore afraid,
We still hoped on while gleamed the blade
Of noble Robert Lee.
Forth from its scabbard all in vain,
Bright flashed the sword of Lee;
'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again.
It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain.
Defeated, yet without a stain.
Proudly and peacefully !
THE SOUTHERN SOLDIER BOY.
Young as the youngest who donned the gray.
True as the truest who wore it,
Brave as the bravest he marched away,
(Hot tears on the cheeks of his mother lay,)
Triumphant waved our flag one day.
He fell in the front before it.
7
98 THE SOUTHERN SOLDIER BOY.
Chorus: — A grave in the wood with the grass o'er-
grown,
A grave in the heart of his mother,
His clay in the one, lifeless and lone.
But his memory lives in the other.
Firm as the firmest where duty led.
He hurried without a falter;
Bold as the boldest he fought and bled.
And the day was won — but the field was red;
And the blood of his fresh young heart was shed,
On his country's hallowed altar.
Chorus: — A grave in the wood with the grass o'er-
grown, etc.
On the trampled breast of the battle-plain,
Where the foremost ranks had wrestled,
The fairest form 'mid all the slain.
Like a child asleep he nestled;
In the solemn shade of the woods that swept
The field where his comrades found him.
They buried him there — and strong men wept.
As in silence they gathered 'round him.
Chorus: — A grave in the wood with the grass o'er-
grown, etc.
JAMES R. RANDALL.
Born in Baltimore, Md., January 1, 1839. Was educated at
Georgetown, D. C, College. Resided for some time in Louisi-
ana, and was Professor of English Literature in Poydras Col-
lege, where, in 1861, he wrote the famous and immortal lyric :
"Maryland, My Maryland." At the close of the war he moved
to Augusta, Ga., where he was engaged as the editor of the
Constitutionalist and later of the Chronicle. He has also held
editorial positions in Washington and in Baltimore. At this
writing he is again living in Augusta. His poems have not yet
been published in book form. It is hoped that a collection of
the poems of this true and brilliant poet will soon be made.
MY MARYLAND.
The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland !
His torch is at thy temple-door,
Maryland !
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle-queen of yore,
Maryland ! my Maryland !
Hark to an exiled son's appeal,
Maryland !
My Mother State, to thee I kneel,
Maryland !
LofC.
100 MY MARYLAND.
For life and death, for wo and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal.
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland ! my Maryland !
Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland !
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
Maryland !
Remember Carroll's sacred trust,
Remember Howard's warlike thrust,
And all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland ! my Maryland !
Come ! 'tis the red dawn of the day,
Maryland !
■ Come ! with thy panoplied array,
Maryland !
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray.
With Watson's blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,
Maryland ! my Maryland !
MY MARYLAND. 10 1
Come ! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland !
Come ! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland !
Come ! to thine own heroic throng,
That stalks with Liberty along,
And ring thy dauntless Slogan-song,
Maryland ! my Maryland !
Dear Mother ! burst the tyrant's chain,
Maryland !
Virginia should not call in vain,
Maryland !
She meets her sisters on the plain,
Maryland !
"Sic semper^' 'tis the proud refrain,
That baffles minions back amain,
Arise in majesty again,
Maryland ! my Maryland !
I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland !
For thou wast ever bravely meek,
Maryland !
102 MY MARYLAND.
But lo ! there surges forth a shriek
From hill to hill, from creek to creek —
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
Maryland ! my Maryland
Thou wilt not yield the vandal toll,
Maryland !
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland !
Better the fire upon thee roll.
Better the shot, the blade, the bowl.
Than crucifixion of the soul,
Maryland ! my Maryland !
I hear the distant thunder-hum,
Maryland !
The Old Line bugle, fife and drum,
Maryland !
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb —
Huzza ! she spurns the Northern scum !
She breathes — she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland ! my Maryland !
JOHN PELHAM.
Just as the spring came laughing through the strife,
With all its gorgeous cheer,
In the bright April of historic life
Fell the great cannoneer.
The wondrous lulling of a hero's breath.
His bleeding country weeps —
Hushed in the alabaster arms of Death,
Our young Marcellus sleeps.
Nobler and grander than the child of Rome,
Curbing his chariot steeds;
The knightly scion of a Southern home
Dazzled the land with deeds.
Gentlest and bravest in the battle brunt.
The champion of the truth.
He bore his banner to the very front
Of our immortal youth.
A clang of sabres 'mid Virginian snow,
The fiery pang of shells —
And there's a wail of immemorial wo
In Alabama dells.
104 JOHN PELHAM.
The pennon drops that led the sacred band
Along the crimson field;
The meteor blade sinks from the nerveless hand.
Over the spotless shield.
We gazed and gazed upon that beauteous face,
While 'round the lips and eyes,
Couched in the marble slumber, flashed the grace
Of a divine surprise.
Oh, mother of a blessed soul on high !
Thy tears may soon be shed —
Think of thy boy with the princes of the sky.
Among the Southern dead.
How must he smile on this dull world beneath,
Fevered with swift renown —
He — with the martyr's amarinthine wreath
Twining the victor's crown !
AT FORT PILLOW.
You shudder as you think upon
The carnage of the grim report,
The desolation when we won
The inner trenches of the fort;
But there are deeds you may not know,
That scourge the pulses into strife ;
Dark memories of deathless wo,
Pointing the bayonet and knife.
The house is ashes where I dwelt,
Beyond the mightly inland sea ;
The tombstones shattered where I knelt.
By that old church at Point Coupee.
The Yankee fiends, that came with fire,
Camped on the consecrated sod,
And trampled in the dust and mire
The Holy Eucharist of God !
The spot where darling mother sleeps.
Beneath the glimpse of yon sad moon.
Is crushed, with splintered marble heaps.
To stall the horse of some dragoon.
I06 AT FORT PILLOW.
God ! when I ponder that black day
It makes my frantic spirit wince ;
I marched — with Longstreet — far away,
But have beheld the ravage since.
The tears are hot upon my face,
When thinking what black fate befell
The only sister of our race —
A thing too horrible to tell.
They say that, ere her senses fled.
She rescue of her brothers cried ;
Then feebly bowed her stricken head,
Too pure to live thus — so she died.
Two of the brothers heard no plea;
With their proud hearts forever still-
John shrouded by the Tennessee,
And Arthur there at Malvern Hill.
But I have heard it everywhere,
Vibrating like a passing knell ;
'Tis as perpetual as the air.
And solemn as a funeral bell.
AT FORT PILLOW. I07
By scorched lagoon and murky swamp
My wrath was never in the lurch;
I've killed the picket in his camp,
And many a pilot on his perch.
With steady rifle, sharpened brand,
A week ago, upon my steed,
With Forrest and his warrior band,
I made the hell-hounds writhe and bleed.
You should have seen our leader go
Upon the battle's burning marge,
Swooping, like falcon, on the foe.
Heading the gray line's iron charge!
All outcasts from our ruined marts,
We heard th' undying serpent hiss,
And in the desert of our hearts
The fatal spell of Nemesis.
The Southron yell rang loud and high
The moment that we thundered in,
Smiting the demons hip and thigh,
Cleaving them to the very chin.
I08 AT FORT PILLOW.
My right arm bared for fiercer play,
The left one helci the rein in slack;
In all the fury of the fray
I sought the white man, not the black.
The dabbled clots of brain and gore
Across the swirling sabres ran;
To me each brutal visage bore.
The front of one accursed man.
Throbbing along the frenzied vein,
My blood seemed kindled into song —
The death-dirge of the sacred slain.
The slogan of immortal wrong.
It glared athwart the dripping glaves,
It blazed in each avenging eye —
The thought of desecrated graves.
And some lone sister s desperate cry!
AUGUSTUS J. REQUIER.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1825. He was educated
in his native city, and practiced law in South Carolina. In 1853
he moved to Mobile, Alabama. During the war he was Confed-
erate States' Attorney for Alabama. After the war he lived in
New York city, practicing law. He died in 1887. A volume of
his poems was published by the Lippincott's in 1859.
ASHES OF GLORY.
Fold up the gorgeous silken sun,
By bleeding martyrs blest,
And heap the laurels it has won
Above its place of rest.
No trumpet's note need harshly blare.
No drum funereal roll,
Nor trailing sables drape the bier
That frees a dauntless soul !
It lived with Lee, and decked his brow
From Fate's empyreal palm ;
It sleeps the sleep of Jackson now —
As spotless and as calm.
It was outnumbered — not outdone;
And they shall shuddering tell,
Who struck the blow, its latest gun
Flashed ruin as it fell.
no ASHES OF GLORY.
Sleep, shrouded Ensign ! not the breeze
That smote the victor tar,
With death across the heaving seas
Of fiery Trafalgar ;
Not Arthur's knights, amid the gloom
Their knightly deeds have starred;
Nor Gallic Henry's matchless plume,
Nor peerless-born Bayard ;
Not all that antique fables feign,
And Orient dreams disgorge ;
Nor yet the Silver Cross of Spain,
And Lion of St. George,
Can bid thee pale ! Proud emblem, still
Thy crimson glory shines
Beyond the lengthened shades that fill
Their proudest kingly lines.
Sleep ! in thine own historic night —
And be thy blazoned scroll :
A warrior's banner takes its flight,
To greet the warrior's soul !
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.
Born in Charleston, S. C, in 1806. Studied law but practiced
his profession a short time only, finally devoting himself alto-
gether to literary labor. He was a voluminous writer of fiction,
poetry, biography, history and miscellaneous essays. He ranks
as one of the foremost of the elder American novelists. His first
volume of poems was published in 1827. His published books
number nearly three score. He died ia 1870.
FORT WAGNER.
Glory unto the gallant boys who stood
At Wagner, and unflinching sought the van ;
Dealing fierce blows and shedding precious blood,
For homes as precious, and dear rights of man !
They've won the meed, and they shall have the glory !
Song, with melodious memories, shall repeat
The legend, which shall grow to themes for story,
Told through long ages, and forever sweet !
High honor to our youth — our sons and brothers,
Georgians and Carolinians, where they stand !
They will not shame their birthrights, or their mothers.
But keep through storm the bulwarks of the land !
They feel that they must conquer ! Not to do it
Were worse than death — perdition! Should they fail,
The innocent races yet unborn shall rue it,
The whole world feel the wound, and nations wail !
112 FORT WAGNER.
No ! they must conquer in the breach or perish !
Assured, in the last consciousness of breath,
That love shall deck their graves, and memory cherish
Their deeds with honors that shall sweeten death !
They shall have trophies in long future hours,
And loving recollections, which shall be
Green as the summer leaves and fresh as flowers,
That, through all seasons, bloom eternally.
Their memories shall be monuments, to rise
Next those of mightiest martyrs of the past ;
Beacons, when angry tempests sweep the skies,
And feeble souls bend crouching to the blast !
A shrine for thee, young Cheves, well devoted,
Most worthy of a great, illustrious sire ;
A niche for thee, young Haskell, nobly noted
When skies and seas around thee shook with fire !
And others as well chronicled shall be !
What though they fell with unrecorded name—
They live among the archives of the free,
With proudest title to undying fame !
The unchiselled marble under which they sleep.
Shall tell of heroes, fearless still of fate ;
Not asking if their memories shall keep.
But if they nobly served, and saved, the State !
ANGEL OF THE CHURCH. II3
For thee, young Fortress Wagner — thou shalt wear
Green laurels, worthy of the names, that now
Thy sister forts of Moultrie, Sumter, bear !
See that thou liftest, for aye, as proud a brow !
And thou shalt be to future generations,
A trophied monument, whither men shall come
In homage; and report to distant nations
A shrine, which foes shall never make a tomb !
THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH.
(St. Michael's Church, Charleston, S. C.)
Aye, strike with sacrilegious aim
The temple of the living God ;
Hurl iron bolt and seething flame
Through aisles which holiest feet have trod ;
Tear up the altar, spoil the tomb.
And, raging with demoniac ire.
Send down, in sudden crash of doom.
That grand, old, sky-sustaining spire.
114 THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH.
That spire, for full a hundred years,
Hath been a people's point of sight ;
That shrine hath warmed their souls to tears,
With strains well worthy Salem's height ;
The sweet, clear music of its bells
Made liquid soft in Southern air.
Still through the heart of memory swells,
And wakes the hopeful soul to prayer.
Along the shores for many a mile.
Long ere they owned a beacon-mark.
It caught and kept the Day-god's smile.
The guide for every wandering bark ;
Averting from our homes the scaith
Of fiery bolt, in storm-cloud driven,
The Pharos to the wandering faith.
It pointed every prayer to Heaven !
Well may ye, felons of the time,
Still loathing all that's pure and free.
Add this to many a thousand crime,
'Gainst peace and sweet humanity ;
Ye, who have wrapped our towns in flame.
Defiled our shrines, befouled our homes,
But fitly turns your murderous aim
Against Jehovah's ancient domes.
THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH. II5
Yet, though the grand old temple falls,
And downward sinks the loft}^ spire,
Our faith is stronger than our walls.
And soars above the storm and fire ;
Ye shake no faith in souls made free
To tread the paths their fathers trod ;
To fight and die for liberty.
Believing in the avenging God !
Think not, though long his anger stays.
His justice sleeps — his wrath is spent ;
The arm of vengeance but delays,
To make more dread the punishment !
Each im.pious hand that lights the torch
Shall wither ere the bolt shall fall ;
And the bright Angel of the Church,
With seraph shield avert the ball !
For still we deem, as taught of old,
That v/here the faith the altar builds,
God sends an angel from his fold,
Whose sleepless watch the temple shields;
And to his flock, with sweet accord.
Yields their fond choice, from Thrones and Powers
Thus Michael, with his fiery sword
And golden shield, still champions ours !
Il6 THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH.
And he who smote the dragon down,
And chained him thousand years of time,
Need never fear the boa's frown,
Though loathsome in his spite and slime;
He, from the topmost height, surveys
And guards the shrines our fathers gave ;
And we, who sleep beneath his gaze.
May well believe his power to save !
Yet, if it be that for our sin
Our angel's term of watch is o'er,
With proper prayer, true faith must win
The guardian watcher back once more !
Faith, brethren of the Church, and prayer —
In blood and sackcloth, if it need ;
And still our spire shall rise in air.
Our temple, though our people bleed !
CARRIE B. SINCLAIR.
Miss Sinclair was born in Milledgeville, Georgia, in 1839.
She was long- a resident of Augusta, Ga. Two volumes of her
poems have been published, and several of her spirited war-
songs were set to music.
GEORGIA, MY GEORGIA.
Hark ! 'tis the cannon's deafening roar,
That sounds along thy sunny shore,
And thou shalt lie in chains no more.
My wounded, bleeding Georgia !
Then arm each youth and patriot sire.
Light up the patriotic fire.
And bid the zeal of those ne'er tire,
Who strike for thee, my Georgia !
On thee is laid oppression's hand,
Around thy altars foemen stand.
To scatter freedom's gallant band,
And lay thee low, my Georgia !
But thou hast noble sons and brave.
The stars and bars above thee wave,
And here we'll make oppression's grave,
Upon the soil of Georgia !
Il8 GEORGIA, MY GEORGIA.
We bow at Liberty's fair shrine,
And kneel in holy love at thine,
And while above our stars still shine,
We'll strike for them and Georgia !
Thy woods with victory shall resound,
Thy brow shall be with laurels crowned,
And peace shall spread her wings around
My own, my sunny Georgia !
Yes, these shall teach thy foes to feel
That Southern hearts, and Southern steel,
Will make them in submission kneel
Before the sons of Georgia !
And thou shalt see thy daughters, too,
With pride and patriotism true.
Arise with strength to dare and do.
Ere they shall conquer Georgia !
Thy name shall be a name of pride —
Thy heroes all have nobly died.
That thou mayest be the spotless bride
Of Liberty, my Georgia !
Then wave thy sword and banner high,
And louder raise the battle-cry.
Till shouts of victory reach the sky.
And thou art free, my Georgia !
THE HOME-SPUN DRESS.
Oh, yes ! I am a Southern girl,
And glory in the name.
And boast it with far greater pride
Than glittering wealth or fame ;
We envy not the Northern girl,
Her robes of beauty rare,
Though diamonds grace her snowy neck,
And pearls bedeck her hair.
Chorus— (Air : " Bonnie Blue Flag.")
Hurrah ! Hurrah !
For the Sunny South so dear.
Three cheers for the home-spun dress,
The Southern ladies wear !
The home-spun dress is plain, I know,
My hat's palmetto, too ;
But then it shows what Southern girls
For Southern rights will do ;
We send the bravest of our land
To battle with the foe,
And we will lend a helping hand —
We love the South, you know.
Chorus. Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
120 THE HOME-SPUN DRESS.
Now Northern goods are out of date ;
And since old Abe's blockade,
We Southern girls can be content
With goods that are Southern made ;
We send our sweethearts to the war,
But, dear girls, never mind !
Your soldier-love will ne'er forget
The girl he left behind.
Chorus. Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
The soldier is the lad for me —
A brave heart I adore ;
And when the Sunny South is free.
And when fighting is no more,
I'll choose me then a lover brave.
From out that gallant band,
The soldier-lad I love the best,
Shall have my heart and hand.
Chorus. Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
The Southern land's a glorious land,
And has a glorious cause ;
Then cheer, three cheers for Southern rights,
And for our Southern beaux !
THE HOME-SPUN DRESS. 121
We scorn to wear a bit of silk,
A bit of Northern lace,
But make our home-spun dresses up,
And wear them, too, with grace.
Chorus. Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
And now, young man, a word to you
If you would win the fair,
Go to the field where honor calls,
And win your lady there ;
Remember that our brightest smiles
Are for the true and brave,
And that our tears are all for those
Who fill a soldier's grave.
Chorus. Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
FRANK O. TICKNOR.
Was born in Baldwin county, Georgia, in 1822. He practiced
medicine, and lived on a farm in the vicinity of Columbus, Ga.,
where he died in December, 1874, His collected poems were
published by the Lippincott's in 1879, with an eloquent introduc-
tion and an interesting biographical sketch by Paul H. Hayne.
LITTLE GIFFEN.
Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire;
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle and he sixteen !)
Specter ! such as you seldom see,
Little Giffen, of Tennessee !
" Take him and welcome ! " the surgeons said;
Little the doctor can help the dead !
So we took him ; and brought him where
The balm was sweet in the summer air ;
And we laid him dow© on a wholesome bed —
Utter Lazarus, heels to head !
And we watched the war with bated breath —
Skeleton Boy against skeleton Death.
Months of torture, how many such !
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch ;
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die.
LITTLE GIFFEN. 123
And didn't. Nay more ! in death's despite
The crippled skeleton "learned to write;"
*'Dear Mother," at first, of course; and then
'*Dear Captain," inquiring about the men.
Captain's answer: *' Of eighty-five
Giffen and I are left alive."
Words of gloom from the war one day;
Johnston pressed at the front, they say ;
Little Giffen was up and away;
A tear — his first — as he bade good-bye.
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.
**ril write, if spared! " There was news of the fight,
But none of Giffen — he did not write.
I sometimes fancy that, were I king
Of the princely Knights of the Golden Ring,
With the song of the minstrel in mine ear.
And the tender legend that trembles here,
I'd give the best on his bended knee.
The whitest soul of my chivalry.
For *' Little Giffen," of Tennessee !
THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY.
The knightliest of the knightly race
That, since the days of old,
Have kept the lamp of chivalry
Alight in hearts of gold ;
The kindliest of the kindly band
That, rarely hating ease,
Yet rode with Spotswood 'round the land,
And Raleigh 'round the seas.
Who climbed the blue Virginian hills
Against embattled foes,
And planted there, in valleys fair.
The lily and the rose;
Whose fragrance lives in many lands,
Whose beauty stars the earth.
And lights the hearths of happy homes
With loveliness and worth.
We thought they slept ! — the sons who kept
The names of noble sires.
And slumbered while the darkness crept
Around their vigil-fires;
But, aye, the " the Golden Horseshoe " knights
Their old Dominion keep,
Whose foes have found enchanted ground,
But not a knight asleep !
THE OLD RIFLEMAN.
Now bring me out my buckskin suit !
My pouch and powder, too !
We'll see if seventy-six can shoot
As sixteen used to do.
Old Bess ! we've kept our barrels bright !
Our trigger quick and true ;
As far, if not as fine a sight,
As long ago we drew.
And pick me out a trusty flint !
A real white and blue,
Perhaps 'twill win the other tint
Before the hunt is through.
Give boys your brass percussion caps !
Old ''shut-pan" suits as well ;
There's something in the sparks — perhaps
There's something in the smell !
We've seen the red-coat Briton bleed,
The red-skin Indian, too !
We've never thought to draw a bead
On Yankee-doodle-doo !
126 THE OLD RIFLEMAN.
But, Bessie, bless your dear old heart !
Those days are mostly done ;
And now we must revive the art
Of shooting on the run !
If Doodle must be meddling, why,
There's only this to do —
Select the black spot in his eye,
And let the daylight through !
And if he doesn't like the way
That Bess presents the view.
He'll maybe change his mind, and stay
Where the good Doodles do !
Where Lincoln lives — the man, you know,
Who kissed the Testament,
To keep the Constitution ? — No !
To keep the Government !
We'll teach these shot-gun boys the tricks
By which a war is won;
Especially how Seventy-six
Took Tories on the run.
HENRY TIMROD.
Was born in Charleston, S, C, in 1829. A volume of his
poems appeared in 1860, published in Boston. These poems
were re-published, with additions, and a beautiful memoir of the
poet, by his life-time friend, Paul H. Hayne, His tender and
lovely poem, " Kate," was published a few years ago, in elegant
style, by a Philadelphia publishing house. Timrod died at
Columbia, S. C, in 1867, and was buried in Trinity Church
cemetery. Poverty, disappointments, and sickness, severely
tried and darkened the life of this gentle and true poet.
A CRY TO ARMS.
Ho ! woodsmen of the mountain-side !
Ho ! dwellers in the vales !
Ho ! ye who by the chafing tide
Have roughened in the gales !
Leave barn and byre, leave kin and cot,
Lay by the bloodless spade ;
Let desk, and case, and counter rot,
And burn your books of trade.
The despot roves your fairest lands ;
And till he flies or fears.
Your fields must grow but armed bands.
Your sheaves be sheaves of spears !
Give up to mildew and the rust
The useless tools of gain ;
And feed your country's sacred dust
With floods of crimson rain !
128 A CRY TO ARMS.
Come, with the weapons at your call —
With musket, pike, or knife ;
He wields the deadliest blade of all
Who lightest holds his life.
The arm that drives its unbought blows
With all a patriot's scorn,
Might brain a tyrant with a rose,
Or stab him with a thorn.
Does any falter ? let him turn
To some brave maiden's eyes.
And catch the holy fires that burn
In those sublunar skies.
Oh ! could you like your women feel,
And in their spirit march,
A day might see your lines of steel
Beneath the victor's arch.
What hope, O God ! would not grow warm
When thoughts like these give cheer ?
The lily calmly braves the storm,
And shall the palm-tree fear ?
Nay ! rather let its branches court
The rack that sweeps the plain ;
And from the lily's regal port
Learn how to breast the strain !
CHARLESTON. 129
Ho ! woodsmen of the mountain-side !
Ho ! dwellers in the vales !
Ho ! ye who by the roaring tide
Have roughened in the gales !
Come ! flocking gayly to the fight
From forest, hill, and lake ;
We battle for our country's right.
And for the hly's sake !
CHARLESTON.
Calm as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow ;
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds,
The city bides the foe.
And yet, behind their ramparts, stern and proud.
Her bolted thunders sleep —
Dark Sumter, like a battlemented cloud.
Looms o'er the solemn deep.
No Calpe frowns from lofty cliff or scaur
To guard the holy strand ;
But Moultrie holds in leash her dogs of war,
Above the level sand ;
9
130 CHARLESTON.
And down the dunes a thousand guns lie couched,
Unseen, beside the flood —
Like tigers in some Orient jungle crouched,
That wait and watch for blood.
Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade,
Walk grave and thoughtful men,
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade
As lightly as the pen.
And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim
Over a bleeding hound.
Seem each one to have caught the strength of him
Whose sword she sadly bound.
Thus girt without and garrisoned at home.
Day patient following day.
Old Charleston looks from roof, and spire, and dome,
Across her tranquil bay.
Ships, through a hundred foes, from Saxon lands
And spicy Indian ports.
Bring Saxon steel and iron to her hands.
And summer to her courts.
THE UNKNOWN DEAD. I3I
But still, along yon dim Atlantic line,
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine,
From some frail, floating oak.
Shall the spring dawn, and she still clad in smiles
And with an unscathed brow,
Rest in the strong arms of her palm-crowned isles,
As fair and free as now ?
We know not ; in the temple of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom ;
And, all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb.
THE UNKNOWN DEAD.
The rain is plashing on my sill,
But all the winds of heaven are still ;
And so it falls with the dull sound.
Which thrills us in the church-yard ground,
When the first spade-full drops like lead
Upon the coffin of the dead.
132 THE UNKNOWN DEAD.
Beyond my streaming window-pane,
I cannot see the neighboring vane,
Yet from its old familiar tower,
The bell comes, muffled, through the shower ;
What strange and unexpected link
Of feeling touched has made me think —
While with a vacant soul and eye,
I watch the gray and stony sky —
Of nameless graves on battle-plains.
Washed by a single winter's rains ;
Where, some beneath Virginian hills.
And some by green Atlantic rills,
Some by the waters of the West,
A myriad unknown heroes rest.
Ah ! not the chiefs who, dying, see
Their flags in front of victory,
Or at their life-blood's noble cost,
Pay for a battle nobly lost.
Claim for their monumental beds.
The bitterest tears a nation sheds ;
Beneath yon lonely mound — the spot
By all save some fond few forgot —
Lie the true martyrs of the fight.
Which strikes for freedom and for right ;
THE UNKNOWN DEAD. 1 33
Of them, their patriot zeal and pride,
The lofty faith that with them died.
No grateful page shall farther tell.
Than that so many bravely fell ;
And we can only dimly guess
What worlds of all this world's distress.
What utter wo, despair and dearth.
Their fate has brought to many a hearth !
Just such a sky as this should weep
Above them always where they sleep ;
Yea, haply, at this very hour,
Their graves are like a lover's bower.
And Nature's self, with eyes unwet.
Oblivious of the crimson debt
To which she owes her April grace,
Laughs gayly o'er their burial-place.
JOHN R. THOMPSON.
Was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1823. Was at school
in Connecticut for some time, and graduated from the Univer-
sity of Virginia. He practiced law, and for fifteen years was
editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, at Richmond. He
was the author of a number of fine lyrics and poems. After the
war he was literary editor of the New York Evening Post. He
died in 1873.
ASHBY.
To the brave all homage render,
Weep, ye skies of June !
With a radiance pure and tender.
Shine, O saddened moon !
** Dead upon the field of glory,"
Hero fit for song and story.
Lies our bold dragoon.
Well they learned whose hands have slain him.
Braver, knightlier foe.
Never fought with Moor or Paynim —
Rode at Templestowe;
With a mien how high and joyous
'Gainst the hordes that would destroy us,
Went he forth we know.
ASHBY. 135
Never more, alas ! shall sabre
Gleam around his crest ;
Fought his fight, fulfilled his labor.
Stilled his manly breast.
All unheard sweet Nature's cadence,
Trump of fame, and voice of maidens.
Now he takes his rest.
Earth, that all too soon hath bound him,
Gently wrap his clay ;
Linger lovingly around him,
Light of dying day ;
Softly fall the summer showers.
Birds and bees among the flowers
Make the gloom seem gay.
There, throughout the coming ages.
When his sword is rust,
And his deeds in classic pages,
Mindful of her trust.
Shall Virginia, bending lowly,
Still a ceaseless vigil hol3r
Keep above his dust !
THE BATTLE RAINBOW.
(On the evening before the beginning of the " Seven Days Battle"
near Richmond.)
The warm, weary day was departing — the smile
Of the sunset gave token the tempest had ceased ;
And the lightning yet fitfully gleamed for a while
On the cloud that sank sullen and dark in the east.
There our army — awaiting the terrible fight
Of the morrow — lay hopeful, and watching, and still;
Where their tents all the region had sprinkled with
white
From river to river, o'er meadow and hill.
While above them the fierce cannonade of the sky
Blazed and burst from the vapors that muffled the
sun,
Their " counterfeit clamors" gave forth no reply,
And slept, till the battle, the charge in each gun.
When lo ! on the cloud, a miraculous thing !
Broke in beauty the rainbow our host to enfold !
The center o'erspread by its arch, and each wing
Suffused with its azure and crimson and gold.
Blest omen of victory, symbol divine
Of peace after tumult, repose after pain ;
How sweet and how glowing with promise the sign,
To eyes that should never behold it again !
THE BATTLE RAINBOW. 137
For the fierce flames of war on the morrow flashed out,
And its thunder-peals filled all the tremulous air ;
O'er slippery entrenchment and reddened redoubt,
Rang the wild cheer of triumph, the cry of despair.
Then a long week of glory and agony came —
Of mute supplication, and yearning, and dread ;
When day unto day gave the record of fame,
And night unto night gave the list of its dead.
We had triumphed — the foe had fled back to his ships,
His standard in rags and his legions a wreck —
But alas ! the stark faces and colorless lips
Of our loved ones, gave triumph's rejoicing a check.
Not yet, oh, not yet, as a sign of release.
Had the Lord set in mercy His bow in the cloud ;
Not yet had the Comforter whispered of peace.
To the hearts that around us lay bleeding and bowed;
But the promise was given — the beautiful arc,
With its brilliant profusion of colors, that spanned
The sky on that exquisite eve, was the mark
Of the Infinite Love overarching the land ;
And that Love, shining richly and full as the day,
Through the tear-drops that moisten each martyr's
proud pall.
On the gloom of the past the bright bow shall display
Of Freedom, Peace, Victory, bent over all.
THE BURIAL OF LATANE.
Captain Latane, one of General J. E. B. Stuart's gallant officers,
was killed in a brilliant charge upon the enemy, who were
routed, after a hand-to-hand conflict. The following extract
from a private letter written at the time, will explain the
circumstances on which the poem is founded :
" Lieutenant Latane carried the body of his dead brother to
Mrs. Brockenbrough's plantation an hour or two after his death.
On this sad and lonely errand he met a party of Yankees, who
followed him to Mrs. Brockenbrough's gate, and stopping there,
told him that as soon as he had placed his brother's body in
friendly hands he must surrender himself prisoner. Mrs.
Brockenbrough sent for an Episcopal clergyman to perform the
funeral ceremonies, but the enemy would not permit him to pass.
Then, with a few other ladies, a fair-haired little girl, her apron
filled with white flowers, and a few faithful slaves, who stood
reverently near, a pious Virginia matron read the solemn and
beautiful burial-service over the cold, still form of one of the
noblest gentlemen and most intrepid officers in the Confederate
Army. She watched the sods heaped upon the coffin-lid, then
sinking on her knees, in sight and hearing of the foe, she
committed his soul's welfare, and the stricken hearts he had
left behind him, to the mercy of the All-Father."
The combat raged not long, and ours the day;
And through the foes that compassed us around,
Our little band rode proudly on its way.
Leaving one gallant comrade, glory-crowned,
Unburied on the field he died to gain.
Single of all the host amid the hostile slain.
THE BURIAL OF LATANE. 139
A moment on the battle's edge he stood,
Hope's halo like a helmet round his hair,
The next beheld him dabbled in his blood,
Prostrate in death, and yet in death how fair !
E'en thus he passed through the red gates of strife.
From earthly crowns and palms to an immortal life.
A brother bore his body from the field,
And gave it unto strangers' hands, that closed
The calm blue eyes, on earth forever sealed.
And tenderly the slender limbs composed ;
Strangers, yet sisters, who with Mary's love,
Sat by the open tomb and, weeping, looked above.
A little child strewed roses on his bier.
Pale roses, not more stainless than his soul.
Nor yet more fragrant than his life sincere.
That blossomed with good actions, brief but whole.
The aged matron and the faithful slave
Approached, with reverent feet, the hero's lowly grave.
No man of God might read the burial rite
Above the rebel — thus declared the foe.
That blanched before him in the deadly fight ;
But woman's voice, in accents soft and low.
Trembling with pity, touched with pathos, read
Over his hallowed dust the ritual for the dead.
140 THE BURIAL OF LATANE.
" 'Tis sown in weakness, it is raised in power,"
Softly the promise floated on the air,
And the sweet breathings of the sunset hour
Came back responsive to the mourner's prayer;
Gently they laid him underneath the sod,
And left him with his fame, his country, and his God.
Let us not weep for him, whose deeds endure ;
So young, so brave, so beautiful ; he died
As he had wished to die — the past is sure.
Whatever yet of sorrow may betide
Those who still linger by the stormy shore.
Change cannot touch him now, or fortune harm him
more.
And when Virginia, leaning on her spear —
** Victrix et Viduay' the conflict done —
Shall raise her mailed hand to wipe the tear
That starts as she recalls each martyred son.
No prouder memory her breast shall sway
Than thine, our early lost, lamented Latane.
CATHERINE A. WARFIELD.
Born near Natchez, Miss., in 1816. Married Elisha Warfield,
Esq., of Lexington, Ky., and resided in that state. Her first
volume of poems was pubh'.shed in 1843. She is best known in
the literary ■World as the author of two remarkably fine novels,
'* The Household of Bouverie," and "The Romance of Beausein-
court." Mrs. Warfield died in 1877.
BEAUREGARD.
Let the trumpet shout once more,
Beauregard !
Let the battle thunders roar,
Beauregard !
And again by yonder sea,
Let the swords of all the free
Leap forth to the fight with thee,
Beauregard !
Old Sumter loves the name,
Beauregard !
Grim Moultrie guards thy fame,
Beauregard !
Oh ! first in freedom's fight !
Oh ! steadfast in the right !
Oh ! brave and Christian knight !
Beauregard !
142 BEAUREGARD.
St. Michael ! with his host,
Beauregard !
Encamps by yonder coast,
Beauregard !
And the Demon's might shall quail,
And the Dragon's terrors fail,
Were he triply clad in mail,
Beauregard !
Not a leaf shall fall away,
Beauregard !
From the laurels won to-day,
Beauregard !
While the ocean breezes blow.
While the billows lapse and flow
O'er the Northmen's bones below,
^ Beauregard !
Let the trumpet shout once more,
Beauregard !
Let the battle-thunders roar,
Beauregard !
From the center to the shore.
From the sea to the land's core
Thrills the echo evermore,
Beauregard !
I
VIRGINIA. 143
VIRGINIA.
Glorious Virginia ! Freedom sprang
Light to her feet at thy trumpet's clang :
At the first sounds of that clarion blast,
Foes like the chaff from the whirlwind passed —
Passed to their doom — from that hour no more
Triumphs their cause by sea or shore.
Glorious Virginia ! noble the blood
That hath bathed thy fields in a crimson flood ;
On many a wide-spread and sunny plain,
Like leaves of autumn thy dead have lain ;
The Southern heart is their funeral urn !
The Southern slogan their requiem stern !
Glorious Virginia ! to thee, to thee
We lean, as the shoots to the parent tree ;
Bending in awe at thy glance of might ;
First in the council, first in the fight !
While our flag is fanned by the breath of fame,
Glorious Virginia ! we'll bless thy name.
A PLEDGE TO LEE.
We pledge thee, Lee !
In water or wine,
In blood or in brine,
What matters the sign ?
Whether brilliantly growing,
Or darkly o'erflowing.
So the cup is divine
That we fill to thee.
Vanquished — victorious,
Gloomy or glorious.
Fainting and bleeding.
Advancing, receding.
Lingering or leading,
Captive or free ;
With swords raised on high.
With hearts nerved to die,
. Or to grasp victory ;
Hand to hand — knee to knee,
With a wild three times three.
We pledge thee, Lee !
We pledge thee, Chief!
In the name of our nation,
Her wide devastation,
Her sore desolation.
Her grandeur and grief !
A PLEDGE TO LEE. 1 45
Whether thou warrest
Where our need is the sorest,
Or in fortress or forest,
Bidest thy time ;
Thou — Heaven elected,
Thou — Angel protected,
Thou — Brother selected,
Whate'er thy fate be,
Our trust is in thee,
And our faith is sublime.
With swords raised on high,
With hearts nerved to die,
Or to grasp victory ;
Hand to hand — knee to knee.
With a wild three times three,
We pledge thee, Lee !
10
i
finjiscellaneous.
UNKNOWN.
Charles W. Hubner.
(Written for the unveiling of the monument to the "Unknown Confed-
erate Dead," in Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, Ga., April 26, 1894. )
Not till a voice shall say :
"It is the Judgment Day !
O Earth ! give up thy dead" —
Ah ! not till this is said,
Will it be ever known
Who here, around this stone,
In death's sweet slumber softly rest,
A wreath of roses on each breast.
We only know that they,
With honor, wore the gray —
Badge of eternal fame —
And in thy cause, O South !
Bore to the cannon's mouth
Thy crimson oriflamb,
And hailed its star-cross, waving free.
On many a field of victory !
Enough for us to know —
For us they faced the foe !
And though we carve *' Unknown "
On this memorial stone,
We feel that Glory claims
For Fame no nobler names
Than theirs — these unknown sons of ours.
Whose dust to-day we deck with flowers.
J
DYING WORDS OF STONEWALL JACKSON. I49
Unknown — save unto God —
Sleep on beneath the sod,
O heroes of the Gray !
Sleep till the Judgment Day ; —
When God shall call His own,
There will be none unknown.
For from the ranks, distinct and clear,
You'll answer to the roll-call : " Here ! "
DYING WORDS OF STONEWALL JACKSON.
" Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle."
" Tell Maj, Hawkes to advance the commissary train."
" Let us cross the river and rest in the shade."
The stars of night contain the glittering Day,
And rain his glory down with sweeter grace,
Upon the dark world's grand, enchanted face —
All loth to turn away.
And so the Day, about to yield his breath,
Utters the stars unto the listening Night,
To stand for burning fare-the-wells of light
Said on the verge of death,
O hero-life that lit us like the sun !
O hero words that glittered like the stars,
And stood and shone above the gloomy wars
When the hero life was done !
ISO DIXIE.
The phantoms of a battle came to dwell
In the fitful vision of his dying eyes —
Yet even in battle-dreams he sends supplies
To those he loved so well.
His army stands in battle- line arrayed ;
His couriers fly — all's done — now God decide !
And not till then he saw the other side,
Or would accept the shade.
Thou Land whose sun is gone, thy stars remain !
Still shine the words that miniature his deeds ;
O thrice beloved ! where'er thy great heart bleeds,
Solace hast thou for pain !
DIXIE.
(The Original Words.)
I wish I was in the land of cotton.
Old times dar am not forgotten,
Look away, look away — look away, Dixie land.
In Dixie land where I was born in,
Early on one frosty mornin'.
Look away, look away— look away, Dixie land.
Den I wish I was in Dixie,
Hooray ! Hooray !
In Dixie land I'll take my stand.
To lib and die in Dixie.
Away, away, away down south in Dixie !
Away, away, away down south in Dixie !
4
i
DIXIE. 151
Ole missus marry "Will-de-weaber,"
William was a gay deceaber;
Look away, etc.
But when he put his arms around 'er,
He smiled as fierce as a forty-pounder,
Look away, etc.
His face was sharp as a butcher's cleaber,
But dat did not seem to greab 'er,
Look away, etc.
Ole missus acted de foolish part,
And died for a man dat broke her heart;
Look away, etc.
Den I wish I was in Dixie,
Hooray ! Hooray ! etc.
Now here's a health to the next ole missus,
And all the gals that want to kiss us.
Look away, etc.
But if you want to drive 'way sorrow,
Come and hear dis song to-morrow,
Look away, etc.
Den I wish I was in Dixie,
Hooray ! Hooray ! etc.
Dars buckwheat cakes and ingen batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter;
Look away, etc.
Den hoe it down and scratch and grabble,
To Dixie's land I'm bound to trabble;
Look away, etc.
Den I wish I was in Dixie,
Hooray ! Hooray ! etc.
HAPPY LAND OF CANAAN.
I sing you a song, and it won't detain me long,
All about the times we are gaining,
I sing it in rhymes, and suit it to the times,
And call it the happy land of Canaan.
Chorus. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh !
Look out there's a good time coming.
Never mind the weather, but get over double
trouble,
I'm bound for the happy land of Canaan.
Old Abe Lincoln was elected President,
And from a rail-splitter he is gaining;
The Yankees they may brag, but we'll raise the
flag,
And make the South a happy land of Canaan.
Chorus. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ! etc.
Down at Harper's Ferry section they raised an
insurrection —
Old Brown thought the niggers would sustain
him;
Along came Governor Wise, and took him by
surprise.
And sent him to the happy land of Canaan.
Chorus. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ! etc.
Old Brown is dead, and the last words he said
Was, *' don't keep me here long remaining " —
First we took up a slope, then dropped him on a
rope,
And dropped him in the happy land of Canaan.
Chorus. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ! etc.
BONNIE BLUE FLAG. I53
Old Buchanan got his orders, and left the fourth
of March,
And says some credit he was gaining ;
Good folks, let him rest, the old man has done
his best,
He is bound for the happy land of Canaan.
Chorus. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ! etc.
Governor Harris shakes his fist at the abolitionist,
And says he could give them a training ;
He would whip them so freely, both Smith and
Horace Greely,
If he could catch them in the happy land of
Canaan.
Chorus. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ! etc.
BONNIE BLUE FLAG.
Harry McCarthy.
We are a band of brothers, and native to the soil,
Fighting for the property we gained by honest toil;
And when our rights were threatened, the cry rose
near and far :
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single
star !
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! for Southern Rights, hurrah !
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single
star !
154 THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG.
As long as the Union was faithful to her trust,
Like friends and like brothers we were kind, we were
just;
But now when Northern treachery attempts our rights
to mar,
We hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a
single star !
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
First gallant South Carolina nobly made the stand,
Then came Alabama, who took her by the hand ;
Next, quickly, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida,
All raised on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a
single star !
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
Ye men of valor, gather 'round the Banner of the
Right,
Texas, and fair Louisiana join us in the fight ;
Davis, our loved President, and Stephens, statesman
rare.
Now rally 'round the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a
single star.
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
And here's to brave Virginia ! the Old Dominion
State,
With the young Confederacy at length has linked her
fate;
Impelled by her example, now other States prepare
To hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a
single star.
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
FEW DAYS. 155
Then here's to our Confederacy ! strong we are and
brave,
Like patriots old we'll fight our heritage to save ;
And rather than submit to shame, to die we would
prefer,
So cheer for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single
star!
Then cheer, boys, cheer! raise the joyous shout,
For Arkansas and North Carolina now have both
gone out;
And let another roaring cheer for Tennessee be
given —
The single star on the Bonnie Blue Flag has grown
to be eleven !
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! etc.
Note. — Miss Rutherford, in her ''■ American Authors," alluding to this
song says : "■ General Butler threatened to fine any man, woman or child,
twenty-five dollars who pang, whistled, or played it, and then he arrested
the publisher, A. E. Blackmar (New Orleans), destroyed the sheet music,
and fined him five hundred dollars."
FEW DAYS.
Our country now is great and free,
Few days, few days;
And thus shall it forever be,
We know the way.
Northern foes may gather here.
Few days, few days ;
We will protect what we hold dear—
We know the way.
1 56 FEW DAYS,
Chorus. We'll battle innovation,
Few days, few days,
And fight 'gainst usurpation
By a cunning foe ;
For our guide is freedom's banner,
Few days, few days ;
Our guide is freedom's banner.
We know the way.
The world shall see that we are true,
Few days, few days ;
And that we know a thing or two,
We know the way.
As Southern boys we're hand in hand,
Few days, few days ;
Our countless throng shall fill the land,
We know the way.
Chorus. We'll battle innovation, etc.
From mountain and from valley forth,
^ Few days, few days.
We'll go to meet the open North,
We know the way ;
The freedom that our fathers won,
Few days, few days,
Shall be defended by each son,
We know the way.
Chorus. We'll battle innovation, etc.
Then shout, then shout o'er hill and plain,
Few days, few days ;
We will our country's rights maintain.
We know the way ;
ROOT HOG OR DIE. 157
We'll always guard it with our might,
Few days, few daye ;
And keep it steadfast in the right —
We know the way.
Chorus. We'll battle innovation, etc.
ROOT HOG OR DIE.
Old Abe Lincoln keeps kicking up a fuss —
I think he'd better stop it, for he'll only make it worse;
We'll have our independence — I'll tell you the reason
why,
Jeff Davis will make them sing, " Root hog or die."
When Lincoln went to reinforce Sumter for the fight,
He told his men to pass through the harbor in the
night ;
He said to them : Be careful, I'll tell you the reason
why,
The Southern boys are mighty bad on " Root hog or
die."
Then Beauregard called a halt according to the style —
The Lincolnites faced about, and looked mighty wild;
They couldn't give the password, I'll tell you the
reason why,
Beauregard's countersign was: '' Root hog or die. '
158 ROOT HOG OR DIE.
They anchored out a battery upon the waters free —
It was the queerest looking thing that ever you did
see,
It was the fall of Sumter, I'll tell you the reason why.
It was the Southern alphabet of " Root hog or die."
They telegraphed to Abraham they took her like a
flirt;
They underscored another line — " there was nobody
hurt."
We're bound to have the Capital, I'll tell you the
reason why.
We want to teach old Abe to sing " Root hog or die."
When Abraham read the dispatch, the tear came in
his eye,
He walled his eyes to Bobby, and Bobby began to cry.
They prayed for Jeff to spare them, I'll tell you the
reason why,
They didn't want to " mark time " to " Root hog or
die."
The Kentucky braves at Trenton are eager for the
fight—
They want to help the Southern boys to set old
Abram right ;
They had to leave their native State, I'll tell you the
reason why.
Old Kentucky wouldn't sing " Root hog or die."
WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER.
Dearest one ! do you remember,
When we last did meet ?
When you told me how you loved me.
Kneeling at my feet ?
Oh, how proud you stood before me,
In your suit of gray ;
When you vowed from me and country,
Ne'er to go astray ?
Chorus. Weeping, sad and lonely,
Sighs and tears how vain ;
When this cruel war is over,
Praying then to meet again.
When the summer breeze is sighing
Mournfully along.
Or when autumn leaves are falling,
Sadly breathes the song.
Oft in dreams I see you lying
On the battle-plain,
Lonely, wounded, even dying.
Calling, but in vain.
Chorus. Weeping, sad and lonely, etc.
If amid the din of battle
Nobly you should fall.
Far away from those who love you.
None to hear you call;
Who would whisper words of comfort ?
Who would soothe your pain ?
Ah, the many cruel fancies.
Ever in my brain !
Chorus. Weeping, sad and lonely, etc.
l60 ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC TO-NIGHT.
But our country called you, loved one ;
Angels guide your way;
While our Southern boys are fighting,
We can only pray.
When you strike for God and freedom,
Let all nations see,
How you love our Southern banner —
Emblem of the free !
Chorus. Weeping, sad and lonely, etc.
ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC
TO-NIGHT.
** All quiet along the Potomac to-night,"
Except here and there a stray picket
Is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro.
By a rifleman hid in the thicket ;
'Tis nothing — a private or two, now and then.
Will not count much in the news of the battle;
Not an officer lost ! only one of the men.
Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle.
" All quiet along the Potomac to-night,"
When the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming,
And their tents in the rays of the clear autumn
moon.
And the light of the camp-fires are gleaming.
A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind
Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping,
While the stars up above, with their glittering
eyes.
Keep guard o'er the army while sleeping.
ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC TO-NIGHT. l6l
There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And thinks of the two on the low trundle-bed.
Far away in the cot on the mountain ;
His musket falls slack — his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with the memories tender.
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep.
And their mother — "may Heaven defend her."
The moon seems to shine as brightly as then —
That night, when the love yet unspoken
Leaped up to his lips, and when low murmured
vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken.
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off the tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun close up to his breast,
As if to keep down the heart's swelling.
He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree,
And his footstep is lagging and weary ;
Yet onward he goes through, the broad belt of
light.
Towards the shades of the forest so dreary.
Hark ! was it the night-wind that rustles the
leaves ?
Was it the moon-light so wondrously flashing .?
It looked like a rifle ! " Ha ! Mary, good-bye ! ''
And his life blood is ebbing and plashing.
" All quiet along the Potomac to-night,"
No sound save the rush of the river ;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead —
" The Picket's " off duty forever !
11
THE SOUTHERN SOLDIER BOY.
(Air : "The boy with the auburn hair.")
Bob Roeback is my sweetheart's name,
He's off to the wars and gone ;
He's fighting for his Nannie dear,
His sword is buckled on;
He's fighting for his own true love,
His foes he does defy ;
He is the darling of my heart,
My Southern soldier boy.
Chorus. Yd ! ho ! yo ! ho ! yo ! ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! ho! ho !
He is my only joy,
He is the darling of my heart.
My Southern soldier boy.
When Bob comes home from war's alarms.
We start anew in life,
I'll give myself right up to him,
A dutiful, loving wife ;
I'll try my best to please my dear,
For he is my only joy,
He is the darling of my heart,
My Southern soldier boy.
Chorus. Yo ! ho ! yo ! ho ! yo ! ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! etc.
Oh ! if in battle he were slain,
I am sure that I should die ;
But I am sure he'll come again.
And cheer my weeping eye ;
But should he fall in this our cause,
He still would be my joy.
For many a sweetheart mourns the loss
Of a Southern soldier boy.
Chorus. Yo ! ho ! yo ! ho ! yo ! ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! etc-
GOOBER] PEAS. 1 63
I hope for the best, and so do all
Whose hopes are in the field ;
I know that we shall win the day,
For Southrons never yield ;
And when we think of those that are away,
We'll look above for joy;
And I'm mighty glad my Bobby is
A Southern soldier boy.
Chorus. Yo ! ho ! yo ! ho ! yo ! ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! etc.
GOOBER PEAS.
Sitting by the roadside on a summer day,
Chatting with my messmates, passing time away.
Lying in the shadow underneath the trees,
Goodness ! how delicious, eating goober peas !
Chorus. Peas ! peas ! peas ! peas ! eating goober peas !
Goodness ! how delicious, eating goober peas !
When a horseman passes, the soldiers have a rule
To cry out at their loudest, ** Mister, here's your
mule,"
But another pleasure, enchantinger than these.
Is wearing out your grinders, eating goober peas !
Chorus. Peas ! peas ! peas ! peas ! eating goober peas !
Goodness ! how delicious, eating goober peas !
Just before the battle the General hears a row.
He says, ** The Yankees are coming, I hear their
rifles now";
164 STONEWALL JACKSON's WAY.
He turns around in wonder, and what do you
think he sees ?
The Georgia militia eating goober peas !
Chorus. Peas ! peas ! peas ! peas ! eating goober peas !
Goodness ! how delicious, eating goober peas !
I think my song has lasted almost long enough,
The subject's interesting, but the rhymes are
mighty rough.
I wish this war was over, when free from rags
and fleas,
We'd kiss our wives and sweethearts, and gobble
goober peas !
Chorus- Peas ! peas ! peas ! peas ! eating goober peas !
Goodness ! how delicious, eating goober peas !
STONEWALL JACKSON'S WAY.
Come, stack arms, men ! pile on the rails.
Stir up the camp-fire bright ;
No matter if the canteen fails,
We'll make a roaring night ;
Here Shenandoah brawls along.
To swell the Brigade's rousing song.
Of ** Stonewall Jackson's way."
We see him now ! — the old slouched hat
Cocked o'er his eye, askew —
The shrewd, dry smile — the speech as pat-
So calm, so blunt, so true ;
STONEWALL JACKSON's WAY. 165
The ''blue light elder" knows o'er well —
Says he, " That's Banks — he's fond of shell —
Lord save his soul ! we'll give him" — wcl],
That's ''Stonewall Jackson's way,"
Silence ! ground arms ! kneel all ! caps off !
Old blue light's going to pray ;
Strangle the fool that dares to scoff !
Attention ! 'tis his way !
Appealing from his native sod,
\n forma pauperis to God —
" Lay bare Thine arm ; stretch forth Thy rod ;
Amen ! " — that's " Stonewall's way."
He's in the saddle now ! Fall in !
Steady — the whole Brigade !
Hill's at the ford cut off ! He'll win
His way out, ball and blade ;
What matter if our shoes are worn !
What matter if our feet are torn !
" Quick step — we're with him before dawn ! "
That's " Stonewall Jackson's way."
The sun's bright lances rout the mists
Of morning, and, by George !
There's Longstreet struggling in the list,
Hemmed in an ugly gorge —
Pope and his Yankees whipped before —
" Bayonet and grape ! " hear Stonewall roar,
" Charge, Stuart ! " Pay off Ashby's score
In " Stonewall Jackson's way."
1 66 CHEER, BOYS, CHEER.
Ah, maiden ! wait, and watch and yearn
For news of Stonewall's band;
Ah, widow ! read with eyes that burn
That ring upon thy hand ;
Ah, wife ! sew on, pray on, hope on,
Thy life shall not be all forlorn —
The foe had better ne'er been born.
Than get in "Stonewall's way."
CHEER, BOYS, CHEER.
Cheer, boys, cheer ! we'll march away to battle !
Cheer, boys, cheer ! for our sweethearts and our
wives !
Cheer, boys, cheer ! we'll nobly do our duty,
And give to the South our hearts, our arms, our
lives.
Bring forth the flag — our country's noble standard.
Wave it on high 'till the wind shakes each fold out;
Proudly it floats, nobly waving in the vanguard ;
Then cheer, boys, cheer ! with a lusty, long, bold
shout.
Chorus. Cheer, boys, cheer ! we'll march away to
battle ! etc.
But as we march, with heads all lowly bending.
Let us implore a blessing from on high ;
Our cause is just — the right from wrong defending.
And the God of Battles will listen to our cry.
Chorus. Cheer, boys, cheer ! we'll march away to
battle, etc.
here's your mule. 167
Though to our homes we never may return,
Ne'er press again our loved ones in our arms,
O'er our lone graves their faithful hearts will mourn;
Then, cheer up, boys, cheer ! such death has no
alarms.
Chorus, Cheer, boys, cheer! we'll march away to
battle ! etc.
HERE'S YOUR MULE.
A farmer came to camp one day, with milk and eggs
to sell,
Upon a mule who oft would stray to where no one
could tell ;
The farmer, tired of his tramp, for hours was made a
fool.
By every one he met in camp with, " Mister, here's
your mule."
Chorus. Come on, come on, come on, old man.
And don't be made a fool ;
I'll tell the truth as best I can —
John Morgan's got your mule.
His eggs and chickens all were gone before the break
of day.
The mule was heard of all along — that's what the
soldiers say —
And still he hunted all day long, alas ! the witless
fool-
While every man would sing the song, " Mister, here's
your mule."
Chorus. Come on, come on, come on, old man, etc.
1 68 LORENA.
The soldiers now in laughing mood on mischief were
intent,
They toted muly on their backs around from tent to
tent ;
Through this hole and that they pushed his head, and
made a rule
To shout, with humorous voices all, ** Mister, here's
your mule."
Chorus. Come on, come on, come on, old man, etc.
Alas ! one day the mule was missed — ah, who could tell
his fate ?
The farmer, like a man bereft, searched early and
searched late ;
And as he passed from camp to camp, with stricken
face, the fool
Cried out to every one he met, " O mister, where's
my mule ? "
LORENA.
The years creep slowly by, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again ;
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,
The frost gleams where the flowers have been ;
But the heart throbs on as warmly now,
As when the summer days were nigh ;
Oh ! the sun can never dip so low,
Adown affection's cloudless sky.
LORENA. 169
A hundred months have passed, Lorena,
Since last I held that hand in mine,
And felt that pulse beat fast, Lorena,
Though mine beat faster by far than thine ;
A hundred months — 'twas flow'ry May,
When up the hilly slope we climbed,
To watch the dying of the day.
And hear the distant church-bells chimed.
We loved each other then, Lorena,
More than we ever dared to tell.
And what we might have been, Lorena,
Had but our loving prospered well —
But then, 'tis past — the years are gone,
I'll call not up their shadowy forms ;
I'll say to them, "lost years, sleep on !
Sleep on ! nor heed life's pelting storms"
The story of that past, Lorena,
Alas ! I care not to repeat.
The hopes that could not last, Lorena,
They lived, but only lived to cheat ;
I would not cause e'en one regret.
To rankle in your bosom now ;
For "if we try we may forget,"
Were words of thine long years ago.
Yes, these were words of thine, Lorena,
They burn within my memory yet ;
They touched some tender chords, Lorena,
Which thrill and tremble with regret ;
170 PAUL VANE.
'Twas not thy woman's heart that spoke ;
Thy heart was always true to me —
A duty, stern and pressing, broke
The tie which linked my sou) to thee.
It matters little now, Lorena,
The past — is in the eternal past,
Our heads will soon lay low, Lorena,
Life's tide is ebbing out so fast ;
There is a future ! O thank God !
Of life this is so small a part !
'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod,
But there, up there, 'tis heart to heart !
PAUL VANE.
(answer to "lorena.")
The years are creeping slowly by, dear Paul,
The winters come and go;
The wind sweeps past with mournful cry, dear Paul,
And pelt my face with snow;
But there's no snow upon the heart, dear Paul,
'Tis summer always there;
Those early loves throw sunshine over all.
And sweeten memories dear.
I thought it easy to forget, dear Paul,
Life glowed with youthful hope;
The glorious future gleamed yet, dear Paul,
And bade us clamber up;
PAUL VANE. 171
They frowning said, "it must not, cannot be,
Break now the hopeless bands !"
And, Paul, you know how well that bitter day,
I bent to their commands.
I've kept you ever in my heart, dear Paul,
Through years of good and ill;
Our souls could not be torn apart, dear Paul,
They're bound together still !
I never knew how dear you were to me,
Till I was left alone;
I thought my poor, poor heart would break, the day
They told me you were gone.
Perhaps we'll never, never meet, dear Paul,
Upon this earth so fair,
But there, where happy angels greet, dear Paul,
You'll meet Lorena there;
Together up the ever-shining way.
We'll press with hoping heart;
Together through the bright, eternal day.
And never more to part.
THE CONFEDERATE NOTE.
These lines were found written upon the back of a Confederate note
shortly after the surrender. Their author is Major S. A. Jonas, Aberdeen,
Mississippi.
Representing nothing on God's earth now,
And naught in the waters below it,
As the pledge of a nation that's dead and gone,
Keep it, dear friend, and show it ;
Show it to those who will lend an ear
To the tale this trifle can tell,
Of a liberty born of the patriot's dream,
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.
Too poor to possess the precious ores.
And too much of a stranger to borrow.
We issued to-day our ''promise to pay,"
And hoped to redeem on the morrow.
The days rolled by, and weeks became years,
But our coffers were empty still.
Coin was so rare that the treasury'd quake
If a dollar should drop in the till;
But the faith that was in us was strong indeed.
And our poverty well we discerned.
And these little checks represented the pay
That our suffering veterans earned.
We knew it had hardly a value in gold,
Yet as gold each soldier received it ;
It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay,
And each Southern patriot believed it.
THE rebel's requiem. 1 73
But our boys thought little of price or of pay,
Or of bills that were over-due ;
We knew if it bought us our bread to-day,
'Twas the best our poor country could do.
Keep it ! it tells all our history over,
From the birth of the dream to its last ;
Modest, and born of the angel Hope,
Like our hope of success "it passed."
THE REBEL'S REQUIEM.
The following verses were written by Col. M. V. Moore, ot
Auburn, Ala., on the morning when the battle of Chickamauga was'
opening — the writer then being under the impression that he
would not survive the coming struggle, which he felt would be
a victory for the Confederates.
O give him a grave, when the victory's won,
In the dust of his own dear clime ;
And lay him to rest with his comrades brave — *
Dead, and dead in a cause sublime !
Heap the clay lightly o'er the upturned face.
Tearless smooth over the blood-stained sod,
And leave him to rest as the soldier dies,
Committing his cause and his all to God.
Shallow ye'll dig there the burial trench.
And narrow the pillowless bed.
But straighten th^ limbs, and his blanket bring
And drape it gently around the dead;
i;74 THE REBEL S REQUIEM.
The shattered breast where once had dwelt
The virtues and pride and love,
Shall reck not the clods, but the spirit flown
Shall smile on the mound above.
Go speak of his name, as ye tell of the fight,
To the dear one who gave him her vow,
And tell her his life to his country he gave,
But his heart he sends to her now.
Perchance she may weep o'er a "rebel's" doom,
And the thought may humble her pride,
But a heart that was truer to his lady-love
And his native land never died !
O maiden ! weep for the fallen love,
O mother ! strengthen your prayer,
O father ! tell of thy heart's dear loss.
And stifle the agony there.
O brothers ! give to your country's cause
The all of your treasure and blood —
For Heaven shall keep the record true.
And vengeance shall be with God !
We curse not the foe for the deed now done —
He has stricken a martyr down !
And though we have borne the "rebel's" cross,
Justice will give us the crown ;
And Heaven alone shall judge the "crime,"
While damning the tyranny deeper
That, under the guise of "Liberty's cause,"
Was forging a chain for the sleeper !
I M CONSCRIPTED, SMITH, CONSCRIPTED. 1 75
He sleeps ! and over his stoneless grave
The shafts of his enemies rattle,
But he heeds them not, no less than he did
Their guns on the morn of battle ;
O well may he rest ! for the future brings
A day that shall brighten his story.
When Fame shall trumpet aright his name,
And a world shall claim his glory !
I'M CONSCRIPTED, SMITH, CONSCRIPTED.
The following admirable parody of General Lytle's famous
poem, " I Am Dying, Egypt, Dying," was written by the late
Albert Roberts, (" John Happy ") of Nashville, Tennessee.
I'm conscripted, Smith, conscripted —
Ebb the subterfuges fast,
And the sub-enrolling marshals
Gather with the evening blast —
Let thine arms, O ! Smith, support me,
Hush your gab and close your ear,
Conscript -grabbers close upon you,
Hunting for you — far and near.
Though my scarred, rheumatic "trotters"
Bear me limping short no more.
And my shattered constitution
Won't exempt me as before ;
1/6 i'm conscripted, smith, conscripted.
Though the provost guard surround me,
Prompt to do their master's will,
I must to the ''front" to perish,
Die the great conscripted still.
Let not the seizer's servile minions
Mock the lion thus laid low —
'Twas no fancy drink that " slewed " him—
Whisky straight-out struck the blow.
Here, then, pillowed on thy bosom.
Ere he's hurried quite away,
Him, who, drunk with bust-head whisky.
Madly threw himself away.
Should the base, plebeian rabble
Dare assail me as I roam,
Seek my noble squaw, Octavia,
Weeping in her widowed home ;
Seek her, say the guards have got me
Under their protecting wings.
Going to make me join the army,
Where the shell and minie sings.
I'm conscripted. Smith, conscripted —
Hark ! you hear that Grabber's cry —
Run, old Smith, my boy, they'll catch you-
Take you to the front to die.
Fare thee well ! I go to battle,
There to die, decay and swell.
Lockhart and Dick Taylor guard thee,
Sweet Octavia — Smith ! — farewell !
THE PRISONER'S LAMENT.
The following song was written by Captain Clarkson, of
Missouri, and set to music by D. O. Booker, of Tennessee,
while both were prisoners of war on Johnson's Island.
My home is on a sea-girt isle,
Far, far away from thee ;
Where thy dear form, thy blessed smile, ^
I never, never see.
I rest beneath a northern sky,
A sky to me so dreary —
I think of thee, dear one, and sigh
Alone upon Lake Erie —
Alone, alone, alone upon Lake Erie.
The winds that waft to others joy,
But mock me with their breath ;
They waste a perfume to destroy.
They sing a song of death.
The waves that beat against the shore.
Keep angry watch at night ;
They wash beneath the prison door,
And always in my sight.
No more I hear my loved one's voice.
No more her form I see ;
No longer does my heart rejoice,
No longer am I free.
I lay me down to sleep.
With aching heart and weary.
With wind and wave my watch to keep,
I'm cast upon Lake Erie.
12
TO GO OR NOT TO GO.
The following racy parody on Hamlet's famous soliloquy,
appeared during the war in the Confederate Union. The
merciless satire was dedicated to the "Exempts," and the writer
of it signed himself " Exempt." The verses constitute an
admirable companion-piece to the late lamented Albert Roberts'
parody, given elsewhere in this collection.
To go or not to go, that is the question :
Whether it pays best to suffer pestering
By idle girls and garrulous old women,
Or to take up arms against a host of Yankees,
And by opposing get killed — to die, to sleep —
(Get out ! ) and in this sleep to say we "sink
To rest by all our country's wishes blest,"
And live forever (that's a consummation,
Just what I'm after). To march, to fight —
To fight ! Perchance to die — aye, there's the rub !
For while I'm asleep who'd take care of Mary
And the babes — when Bill is in the low ground —
Who'd feed 'em, eh ? There's the respect
I have for them that makes life sweet ;
For who would bear the bag to mill,
Plow Dobbin, cut the wheat, dig "taters,"
Kill hogs, and do all sort of drudgery,
If I am fool enough to get a Yankee
Bullet in my brain ! Who'd cry for me ?
Would patriotism pay my debts, when dead ?
But oh ! the dread of something after death —
That undiscovered fellow who'd court Mary,
And do my hugging — that's agony,
And makes me want to stay at home,
'Specially as I ain't mad with nobody.
THE SOUTHERN MARSEILLAISE. 1 79
*
Shells and bullets make cowards of us all ;
And blamed my skin if snortin' steeds,
And pomp and circumstance of war
Are to be compared with feather-bed,
And Mary by my side.
THE SOUTHERN MARSEILLAISE.
Soldiers, rouse ye to the battle,
Arm, arm ye at your country's call;
Hark to the sound of war beyond ye.
Rouse ye ! rouse ye ! one and all.
Homes and liberties are threatened.
Foes would have ye all their own ;
Rouse ! assert your manhood, freemen !
Prove that ye can stand alone.
Chorus. To arms ! to arms ! ye brave !
The avenging sword unsheathe !
March on ! march on !
All hearts resolved
On victory or death !
March on ! march on !
All hearts resolved
On victory or death !
Hark ! the sound of battle calls ye.
Arm yourself at Honor's call ;
Go, defend your rights as freeman —
Go, protect your homes, your all !
l80 TO A ONE ARMED SOUTHERN SOLDIER.
Show to all the nations round ye,
Show them that your rights ye know,
Show them that ye can defend them —
That your foes ye will lay low.
Chorus. To arms ! to arms ! etc.
Still, as brothers, war's red hatchet
Ye would bury low and deep;
Only right the wrongs ye heed of,
Strife and carnage then may sleep.
God protect our country ever,
From the woes of civil strife;
Keep, oh keep the dire destroyer
Far from all that's dear in life.
Chorus. To arms ! to arms ! etc.
TO A ONE-ARMED SOUTHERN SOLDIER.
HENRY JEROME STOCKARD,
Thou hero ! that for four ensanguined years,
Did'st face the battle's shattering shot and shell;
And though ten thousand at thy right hand fell,
Not once dids't waver with ignoble fear —
Not once, at memory of thy home, and tears
Of loved ones, when grief-crushed in mute fare-
well,
They yielded thee unto that awful hell.
SONG OF THE TEXAS RANGERS. l8l
Whose hot breath only now no longer sears —
And then when all had perished, scarred and maimed,
With thy one hand thy ruins did'st repair
And feed, the while, thy foeman from thy store —
To tell thy valor speech hath not been framed,
A more unfading chaplet thou should'st wear, .
Then e'er the bravest Gaul or Spartan wore !
SONG OF THE TEXAS RANGERS.
Tune: "The Yellow Rose of Texas."
The morning-star is paling,
The camp-fires flicker low,
Our steeds are madly neighing,
For the bugle bids us go ;
So put the foot in stirrup,
And shake the bridle free.
For to-day the Texas Rangers
Must cross the Tennessee.
Chorus, With Wharton for our leader,
We'll chase the dastard foe.
Till our horses bathe their fetlocks
In the deep blue Ohio.
Our men are from the prairies.
That roll broad and proud and free,
From the high and craggy mountains,
To the murmuring Mexic sea ;
1 82 SONG OF THE TEXAS RANGERS.
And their hearts are open as the plains,
Their thoughts as proudly brave
As the bold cliffs of the San Bernard,
Or the Gulfs resistless wave.
Chorus. Then quick ! into the saddle,
And shake the bridle free,
To-day with gallant Wharton,
We cross the Tennessee.
'Tis joy to be a Ranger !
To fight for dear Southland ;
'Tis joy to follow Wharton,
With his gallant trusty band !
'Tis joy to see our Harrison,
Plunge like a meteor bright
Into the thickest of the fray,
And deal his deadly might.
Chorus. Oh ! who'd not be a Ranger,
And follow Wharton's cry !
To battle for his country —
And, if it needs be — die !
By the Colorado's waters.
On the Gulf's deep-murmuring shore,
On our soft green peaceful prairies,
Are the homes we may see no more ;
But in those homes-our gentle wives.
And mothers with silvery hairs.
Are loving us with tender hearts.
And shielding us with prayers.
somebody's darling. 183
Chorus. So, trusting in our country's God,
We draw our stout, good brand,
For those we love at home.
Our altars and our land.
Up, up with the crimson battle-flag —
Let the blue pennon fly ;
Our steeds are stamping proudly —
They hear the battle-cry !
The thundering bomb, the bugle's call.
Proclaim the foe is near ;
We strike for God and native land,
And all we hold most dear.
Chorus, Then spring into the saddle,
And shake the bridle free —
For Wharton leads, through fire and blood.
For home and victory !
SOMEBODY'S DARLING.
Marie La Coste, of Georgia.
Into a ward of the white-washed halls,
Where the dead and the dying lay;
Wounded by bayonets, shells and balls.
Somebody's darling was borne one day —
Somebody's darling, so .young and so brave!
Wearing yet on his sweet, pale face —
Soon to be hid in the dust of the grave —
The lingering light of his boyhood's grace.
i84 somebody's darling.
Matted and damp are the curls of gold
Kissing the snow of that fair young brow:
Pale are the lips of delicate mould,
Somebody's darling is dying now.
Back from his beautiful blue-veined brow,
Brush his wandering waves of gold ;
Cross his hands on his bosom now—
Somebody's darling is still and cold.
Kiss him once for somebody's sake.
Murmur a prayer soft and low —
One bright curl from its fair mates take —
They were somebody's pride you know;
Somebody's hand hath rested there;
Was it a mother's, soft and white ?
Or have the lips of a sister fair
Been baptized in their waves of light ?
God knows best ! He has somebody's love;
Somebody's heart enshrined him there —
Somebody wafted his name above.
Night and morn, on the wings of prayer.
Somebody wept when he marched away.
Looking so handsome, brave, and grand !
Somebody's kiss on his forehead lay —
Somebody clung to his parting hand.
Somebody's watching and waiting for him,
Yearning to hold him again to her heart ;
And there he lies with his blue eyes dim,
And the smiling child-like lips apart.
BENTONVILLE. 1 85
Tenderly bury the fair young dead —
Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;
Carve on the wooden slab o'er his head :
" Somebody's darling slumbers here."
BENTONVILLE,
(Written on the field, at the close of the first day's fight.)
BY T. B. CATHERWOOD.
Another battle has been fought, another victory won,
We've fought this day from rising to setting of the
sun,
And He, the Great Jehovah, has aided with His arm.
To shield our wives and sisters, our hearths and homes,
from harm,
Then thanks be to His hallowed name who helped us
in His might,
And glory to the men who fought so stoutly for the
right.
This memorable nineteenth of March, before the
break of day,
We Southern men, with hearts elate, took up the
onward way,
For Rumor, with her thousand tongues, asserted that
we would
To-day resist the forward march of Sherman's hireling
brood,
1 86 BENTONVILLE.
And who could doubt the issue of the fight for which
we longed,
Our God had ever fought for right, and still redressed
the wronged.
Full soon upon our anxious ears the martial music
fell,
The rattle of the musketry, the shriek of shot and
shell ;
The cheers of charging columns, the groans of men
in pain,
And soon we swept, with loud hurrah, o'er wounded
foes and slain.
And as the sun rose high overhead, our fire grew
hotter still.
Aye ! 'twas a bloody fight to-day, we fought at
Bentonville.
But victory at last was ours, we hold the crimsoned
field.
Though many a blue-coat bit the dust, ere they were
forced to yield.
And as the sun sank in the West, and night came on
apace.
The foeman rallied once again, once more took heart
of grace ;
One fierce, last effort still he made in hope to drive
us back.
But found our bayonets just as sharp, our fire not
more slack.
BENTON VILLE. 1 87
And thus hath been a battle fought, and thus a
victory won,
We've fought this day from rising to setting of the
sun,
And He, the Lord God Terrible, hath aided with His
arm,
To shield our wives and sweethearts, our hearths and
homes, from harm ;
Then glory to the Lord of Hosts, who helped us in
His might.
And glory to the men who fought so valiant for
the right !
motes.
NOTES.
Authorship and History of "Dixie."
The following history of " Dixie " is vouched for as
the true one, based upon authenticated facts, as pre-
served by Captain B. H. Teague, of Aiken, S. C.
The writer to whom we are indebted for this com-
pilation of facts relative to this famous war song,
says that Dan Emmet, the minstrel, wrote it in New
York city in 1859 or i860, and it was copyrighted as
being sung at Bryant's. It soon became a local
favorite as a negro walk-around, having a catching
musical air that Emmet does not claim to have writ-
ten. The words are the veriest doggerel, and were
put to music (in the usual way with the melodies of
minstrels) through the art of the musical director
and his orchestra.
That Emmet was inspired to write ** Dixie " by any
patriotic or other thought or knowledge of the South,
is absurd. That he could have supposed his produc-
tion was to be a Southern war song, is utterly impos-
sible. And in the adoption of the word "Dixie," he
probably caught at it as a meaningless negroism that
would stand for the South when associated with
192 Dixie.
"cotton," in a song supposed to be sung in the negro
plantation dialect, just as Stephen C. Foster, suppos-
ing there were more slaves the farther one pene-
trated the South, selected the Suwannee river, in
Florida, (where there were very few negroes) as the
scene of his immortal melody — " Old Folks at Home."
As a matter of fact, Emmet knew nothing person-
ally of the South or of its institutions. He belonged
to the stock of a minstrel company that did not, like
West's and Rumsey's and Kunkel's, travel through
the South. Bryant's, and Wood's and Butler's and
Christy's and Buckly's minstrels, respectively, had
halls of their own, and courted only metropolitan
patronage.
In December, i860, during the exciting scenes
immediately preceding South Carolina's formal with-
drawal from the Union, and while Charleston was
alive with local troops daily and hourly on parade,
Rumsey & Newcomb's minstrel troup came to that
city and played to crowded audiences for a week.
Incidentally to these performances the popular walk-
around of *' Dixie " was given as a climax. The local
military bands, having repudiated all the national
airs, were in sore straits for martial music, and
eagerly caught up *' Dixie," already being whistled
through the streets by the little negroes; and the
new song, played as a march, though repeated ad
••f
,.^ '-«■#;
THE CONFEDERATE NOTE. I93
infinitum^ held its popularity and rapidly spread over
the Cotton States. These Charleston bands at the
head of South Carolina troops, were the first to enter
Virginia, and they quickly impregnated the spirit of
the young Confederacy with the inspiring measures
of the minstrel break-down, that will forever awaken
Southern enthusiasm wherever it may be heard.
The Confederate Note.
The famous " Lines written on the back of a Con-
federate Note," form a poem the authorship of which
has been claimed by various persons — as is frequently
the case when under the friendly shadow of " anony-
mous," an opportunity is offered to aspiring and un-
scrupulous plagiarists to parade themselves in bor-
rowed plumes, and pose as the authors of noted poems
whose real claims to the honor of having written them
are either deliberately ignored, or the effect of peculiar
circumstances and the progress of years becloud the
genuine title or relegate it to the Limbo of " anon-
ymous."
This has been the history of the famous poem
beginning "Representing nothing on God's earth
now," written by Maj. S. A. Jonas, now the editor of
the Aberdeen, Mississippi, ^5!^^;;^/;/^^, to whom we
13
194 THE CONFEDERATE NOTE.
are indebted for the correct and authentic copy of the
poem printed in this book.
The number of people who have claimed to be the
author of these lines is " legion," and the controversy-
over it has been hot and prolonged. Fort'unately the
real author is living, is fully able to take care of him-
self and his well-deserved laurels, and, moreover, pre-
sents incontestable proof of the truth of his claim.
The poem has been credited also to Father Ryan,
and most extensively to Miss M. J. Turner, of North
Carolina, and we have heard it stated that what is
alleged to be the original Confederate note, on the
back of which this lady is alleged to have written the
lines, is among the war-relics in the Smithsonian
Institute, at Washington. Be this as it may, there
is and can be no doubt now as to the true authorship.
The following correspondence on the subject
appeared in the Louisville, Kentucky, Courier-Journaly
and gives in compact form the history of the poem :
Aberdeen, Miss., December ii, 1889.
To the Editor of the Courier-JoiLvnal :
In the department of correspondence of your
issue of November 29, appears an article attributing
the authorship of my " Lines on the back of a Confed-
erate Note," to a lady of your city.
This article, followed by what purports to be a cor-
rect copy of the lines, reads as follows :
THE CONFEDERATE KOTE. 195
" An incorrect copy of the following beautiful poem
appeared in the correspondents' column of the Courier-
Journal a few weeks ago. The person who sent it for
publication did not know the author and wrote the
matter from memory. Since its appearance, Mrs. R.
E. Lytle, of 410 West Chestnut street, this city, has
shown that she wrote it and furnishes the original
copy, which is published below. Mrs. Lytle was the
wife of Dr. R. M. Lytle, who was a surgeon in the
Confederate Army, and accompanied her husband
throughout the war. The circumstances under which
the poem was written are of peculiar interest, as they
give emphasis to the spirit which prompted it at the
time. Just after General Johnston surrendered, Mrs.
Lytle was at Griffin, Georgia, where she met an old
friend, a Mr. Pucci, of Virginia, who had been dis-
charged from service, as the war was over. Mrs. Lytle
and the soldier were talking over the surrender, and
the future looked very dark and gloomy. During the
conversation Mr. Pucci pulled a roll of Confederate
bills from his pocket, with the remark, * What is it
good for now } ' Under the inspiration of the moment,
Mrs. Lytle wrote the poem just as it appears below,
and the soldier copied it on the back of a $S bill."
Now, I do not for an instant suppose that Mrs.
Lytle is lending her name to a bold attempt at liter-
ary misappropriation, and take it for granted that in
196 THE CONFEDERATE NOTE.
correcting the above statement I am doing an act of
justice to her as well as to myself, for it so happens
that there are several persons yet living who read that
poem fresh from my pen before it had caught the
public eye, and retained its hold with a tenacity that
certainly surprised the author.
Its origin was as follows : Immediately after John-
ston's surrender at High Point, North Carolina, a
number of us obtained transportation to Richmond,
Virginia, where we awaited means to reach our homes.
A little party of us, including Captain A. B. Schell,
of your city, were quartered, thanks to the kindness
of its proprietor, at the Powhatan Hotel. A Phila-
delphia comedy company was stopping there, and one
of the lady performers. Miss Annie Ruch, requested
that we would all furnish her with our autographs. It
so happened that among the spoils of the Confederacy
that were floating through the town were many ;^5oo
bills incomplete — the reverse sides or backs had not
been printed — and Miss Ruch furnished us each with
one of these upon which to write. We all complied with
her wishes, each writing a compliment or sentiment,
and my blank was filled in with the lines in question.
The original copy on the note, a few months later,
fell into the hands of the editor of the Metropolitan
Recordy of New York, who published it under the
heading, " Something too good to be lost," and thi§
THE CONFEDERATE NOTE. 1 97
was its first appearance in print, for its author's appre-
ciation of it was based entirely upon that of the world
that so kindly received it.'
The first person, except the author, who ever read
it was your gallant fellow-citizen, Captain A. B. Shell,
the commander of Cleburne's Sharpshooters, whose
criticism was passed upon the lines before they were
copied on the note.
S. A. Jonas,
Editor Aberdeen (Miss.) Examiner.
We take the liberty of quoting here the following
extract from a note of recent date, from Major Jonas,
to the compiler of this volume : " In addition to Cap-
tain A. B. Schell, mentioned as a witness to the
writing of the lines, I would mention Captain D. L.
Sublett, now of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Lieuten-
ant R. S. Desportes, now of Columbia, South Caro-
lina, both comrades of mine on Lieutenant-General
S. D. Lee's staff, who were witnesses to the writing
of the poem."
**Hon. Jefferson Davis was greatly interested in
locating the authorship of this poem, and in conver-
sation with my brother, George B. Jonas, of New
Orleans, in 1873, referred to it, saying, 'he had gone
to a great deal of trouble in tracing it up, and had
established — what he had always claimed — beyond
any doubt, your brother's authorship.'"
198 maryland, my maryland.
Little Giffen.
The story of '' Little Giffen " is said to be literally
true. His name was Isaac Giffen, and he was born
of humble parents in one of the hamlets of East
Tennessee. His father was a blacksmith. ** Little
Giffen " was terribly wounded in one of the battles in
Tennessee, and, with other wounded, was carried far
South to be cared for. Dreadfully mutilated, and so
like a child in appearance as to seem to have been
** borne by the tide of war from the cradle to the jaws
of Death," he was taken from the hospital, in Colum-
bus, Georgia, to the home of Dr. Ticknor, the poet,
whose residence was a few miles south of the city.
He remained with the family about a year, but was
always anxious to return to the front, which he did in
time to be killed in one of the battles around Atlanta,
and it is supposed that he was buried in one of the
numerous graves in Oakland Cemetery, in that city,
where the dust of many a hero who " wore the gray"
rests within the shadow of the monument on which is
carved the pathetic legend : ** To the Unknown Dead."
Maryland, My Maryland.
At the time (April, 1861) "Maryland, My Mary-
land " — which Oliver Wendell Holmes declared "the
best poem produced on either side during the Civil
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND. IQQ
War"— was written, its author was Professor of English
Literature and Classics, in Poydras College, Point Cou-
pee, Louisiana. One day he read the news, flashed
over the wires, of the attack upon the Massachusetts
troops passing through Baltimore. Speaking of the
way in which this splendid lyric was inspired and the
circumstances under which it was written, Mr. Ran-
dall says : " I had long been absent from my native
city, and the startling events there influenced my
mind. That night I could not sleep, for my nerves
were all unstrung, and I could not dismiss what I had
read in the paper from my mind. I rose, lit a candle
and went to my desk. Some powerful spirit seemed
to possess me, and almost involuntarily I proceeded
to write the song, '' My Maryland."
The poem was sent to the New Orleans Delta, and
published in that journal. A lady of Baltimore, Miss
Cary, set the words to music, adapting them to the
air of an old German folk-song, " O Tannenbaum, O
Tannenbaum, wie gruen sind deine Blaetter." The
following story is told concerning the first time the
song was sung in the Confederate Army :
After the battle of Manassas, General Beauregard
invited a number of Maryland ladies to visit his head-
quarters, and while there the band of the Washing-
ton Artillery, of New Orleans, serenaded them.
After the serenade the '' Boys in Gray " asked for a
20d MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.
song, and Miss Jennie Gary, standing at the door of
the tent, sang " Maryland, My Maryland." The sol-
diers caught up the refrain, and the whole camp rang
with the beautiful melody. As the last notes died
away three cheers and a " tiger " were given. It is
said that there was not a dry eye in the tent, and not
a rim was left on a cap outside.
In the Atlanta, Georgia, CojistitutioUy of recent date,
appeared the following brilliant pen-picture of the
author of this immortal war-lyric, and also portraying
its fiery effects upon the spirit of the Southern people.
The article is from the pen of Mr. Wallace P. Reed,
of the Constitution s editorial staff :
''If ever there was a poet with a Muse of fire that
poet was James R. Randall, in the days that tried
men's souls a generation ago. Even now, in these
piping times of peace, I never see Randall without
feeling a fiery tidal wave of memories surging over
and through me.
''What Rouget de Lisle was to France, Randall
was to the Gonfederacy. What the Marseillaise was
when the entire French nation went mad, "My Mary-
land " was when the Southern people threw them-
selves into the tumultuous horror of our civil war.
" Looking back upon that sulphurous era, the author
of the South's greatest war-lyric seems a figure of the
dead past, and yet, only yesterday, he met me face to
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND. ^01
face — a young man still, as we class men these days —
with his olden dash and impulsive vigor, chastened
and mellowed, as one might expect, by the softening
touch of time.
" While he talked with me about familiar matters
of the hour, with never a word about the past, I found
myself thinking of the potential part played by his
pen in the most tremendous epoch of our history.
** What our most eloquent tribunes could not do, it
was reserved for the poet to do. Where eloquence
failed to move the people, a song set their hearts
aflame. It stirred a fever in the blood of age, turned
weak women into heroines, and wherever its wild
notes were heard legions of armed men sprang up.
It was a bugle-call, a cry to arms, a battle- shout all in
one, with a hint of clashing steel and the thunderous
rush of charging hosts.
" The young Marylander who wrote that song lit-
tle dreamed of the influence which it was destined to
wield. He awoke to find himself famous.
"The flaming lyric swept over the land like a con-
flagration. From the Potomac to the Rio Grande
" My Maryland " was everywhere — in the air, on every
lip — an inspiration and a prophesy. Millions of
Southerners heard it with feelings of divine exulta-
tion, intense enthusiasm, or maddened frenzy. On
the other side of the border our foemen heard it with
202 MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.
mingled anger and admiration. It rolled across the
sea, and rolled resurgent back again, to mingle its
strange notes with the brazen clamor of war.
" In gay salons, in crowded assemblies, on the stage,
in the trenches and on the tented field, the song did
its perfect work. It sped onward through the day
and through the night, ringing out from the moun-
tains, awakening the echoes in the valleys, stirring
every heart and nerving every arm.
"The words alone did not wield this wonderful
power, nor the music ; it was the spirit back of them
that made them immortal.
" Looking at Randall yesterday, I lived in the past
again. In how many of the beleaguered cities of the
Confederacy I had heard his great war-song !
"I had heard it from gentle maidens, and from
rough troopers as they rode, booted and spurred, to
the fray. I had heard it here in the City of the Siege,
at the time when roaring cannon and shrieking shells
were its only accompaniment. I had heard it in our
celebrations of victory, and again when we were in
the throes of a heroic despair.
" How it fired the blood and strengthened every
arm that wielded a sword ! How well it has been
called the Marseillaise of the Confederacy !
"In those red days Randall was the idol of the
people. Crowds rushed to see him, and every city
BENTONVILLE. 203
was proud to claim him as its honored guest. States-
men, warriors and fair women overwhelmed him with
their attentions, which he modestly tried to avoid.
'* On one side of the Potomac a nation would gladly
have voted him a monument ; on the other an infuri-
ated people impatiently longed for the accident of
war, that would enable t^em to load him with chains
in one of their Bastiles.
''An old writer has said that if he could make a
nation's songs, he cared not who made its laws. Ran-
dall's famous song is an illustration of the force of the
foregoing oft quoted saying. It was a power in
the land, and it molded the thought and character and
literature of one of the greatest and yet one of the
most short-lived of Republics."
Bentonville.
In a note to the compiler, the author of the stirring
battle-field poem " Bentonville," says : " I beg to
offer my poem, written on the field at the close of the
first day's fight. I was serving with the Beaufort
Volunteer Artillery, of Beaufort, South Carolina, the
oldest military organization on the continent, but
one — the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company,
of Boston. I should like the poem to appear in a per-
manent publication, as it \?> prima facie evidence that
204 THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG.
we certainly whipped Sherman at the battle of Ben-
tonville, despite the great disparity of numbers.
From that point of view the little poem derives its
importance."
The "Bonnie Blue Flag."
The following interesting communication was
printed in the Houston, Texas, Post during the Con-
federate Veterans' Reunion in that city, in May, 1895.
The erroneous statement having been published, in
some paper, that a lady of Birmingham, Alabama,
was the author of "Bonnie Blue Flag" the writer,
who signs himself "Company B," says:
" Well, well, well ! For more than thirty years
those old fellows have sung and heard that dear old
song and tune and have believed it to be the creation
of the gallant little Irishman, Harry McCarthy, and I
still believe so.
" Memory carries me back to September, 1861, when
the Terry Rangers were mustering into the Confed-
erate service at Houston, in the old Bearce hide house,
and commenced their long and weary march over-
land to New Orleans. Companies B, H and K, com-
manded by Captains Wharton, Holt and Walker,
being mounted, arrived in that city some days in
advance of the other companies, commanded by Lieu
THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG. .205
tenant-Colonel T. S. Lubbock. When we arrived in
the city it was full of Arkansas and Louisiana troops,
hurrying to the front. About September i8, 1 attended
the Academy of Music, at that time one of the most
popular places of amusement in the city. The house
was packed from floor to gallery with the * boys ' of
Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, on their way to the
battle-front. Harry McCarthy appeared on the stage,
accompanied by a young lady, who bore a flag of dark
blue silk, with a white star in center. He commenced
singing the ' Bonnie Blue Flag,' and before the first
verse was ended the audience was quivering with
excitement. He sang :
' When our Northern brothers attempt our rights to
mar.
We will hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that
bears the single star.
(At this point the young lady waved the flag.)
Hurrah, hurrah, for Southern rights, hurrah.
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears the sin-
gle star.'
" Then the boys rose and yelled, and for some min-
utes Harry waited for the excitement to subside, he
then sang the second verse and when he commenced
the chorus the audience joined and sang it over and
over again, amid the most intense excitement. It was
206 THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG.
wafted to the streets, and in twenty-four hours it was
all over the Southern Army, and then caught up by
the Yanks and was sung or hummed in every hamlet,
town and city of the United States. It was, from
that night, the Marsellaise of the South.
" Before the song was ended, * Old Virg.,' of com-
pany B, was so excited that he rose and gave vent to
his pent-up enthusiasm in a series of Texas yells and
continued after the others had ceased. A policeman
standing in the aisle tapped him on the shoulder and
ordered him to be quiet. Quick as a flash ' Old Virg.'
struck out straight from the shoulder and the police-
man tumbled. In an instant police rattlers were
heard in the room and were re-echoed all over the city,
and were answered by the police and their assistants,
who pushed their way into the Academy and attempted
to seize and carry ' Old Virg.* to the calaboose,
"Then came a scene ever to be remembered.
Every Texan in the room went to the rescue and a
fierce hand to hand fight ensued. Blows were given
and returned, the combatants rolled and tumbled,
while the audience left the room in order to give fair
play. Dr. A., of company B, was caught by his long
hair and felt the heft of a policeman's club. Seeing
this fight, Sam A., of company B, went to the rescue,
and with his long knife artistically sliced the police-
man's ear and rescued Dr. A. It was a furious fight,
THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG. 207
and for some minutes it seemed destined to have a
sad and bloody ending. At this juncture Colonel
Frank Terry and the Mayor appeared. The Mayor
called off his police, and the Rangers, led by Colonel
Terry, marched sullen and defiant off to their camp.
" This is my recollection of the Bonnie Blue Flag,
in 1861. Many of the gallant 'boys,' who were pres-
ent on that eventful night, now sleep their last sleep
in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina,
but men are in Houston who were present on that
night, viz : B. F. Weems, Sam Ashe, A. L. Steele
and others. I wonder if those old fellows have for-
gotten that night and Harry McCarthy. I believe
this was the first time it was sung on American soil.
" Poor Harry McCarthy was killed at Chickamauga.
"Give Harry his dues. Old Confederates should
see that the rights and memories of their comrades
are protected. This is the duty of the United Con-
federate Veterans."
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